It’s Day 350 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On a snowy mid-December day, it took less than an hour to drive from the Mayfield Road Drive-In Theatre, a few miles south of Chardon OH to the Midway Twin Drive In Theater, halfway along the road between Kent OH and Ravenna OH.

For a drive-in with its own Wikipedia page, the Midway Twin’s history sure is muddy. As I type, it says the drive-in was built in 1955, which is obviously wrong. The May 6, 2005 Daily Kent Stater said the Midway was built in 1949, but I don’t think that’s right either.

The Midway’s first advertisement in the Akron Beacon Journal, in which it said it was “now open”, was July 27, 1950. On July 21, 1952, the Midway ad said “tonight only” was “Our Anniversary” and promised a giant fireworks display. My guess is that this drive-in opened on Friday, July 21, 1950.

What is beyond dispute is that the drive-in was designed and built by Jack Vogel and owned by the Vogel family until at least the late 1980s. The next questions are when was the drive-in sold to current owner John Knepp, and when did it add a second screen. The first time the Beacon Journal called it the Midway Twin was in June 1989 in reference to a nearby traffic accident. The Wikipedia entry said it was Knepp who added the second screen. The Daily Kent Stater said Knepp bought the Midway in 1990. I don’t know which of those is right.

The Beacon Journal wrote in August 1997, “The Midway’s obituary was almost written just a few years ago. That was when Wal-Mart came knocking. The money offered was not enough to agree to a buyout of his long-term lease on the Midway land, said John Knepp. … This spring, a Wal-Mart opened on a site west of the theater.” It’s still there.

That Wikipedia entry says the original screen tower “was destroyed by a winter storm in December 2000” and replaced before the 2001 season.

The Midway Twin converted to digital projection in 2013, as documented by the Kent Record-Courier. “It’s good to keep something like this going because with less than 400 nationwide, it’s kind of an elite status to be involved in something like this,” said general manager Mike Marxen.

Earlier this year when Disney demanded higher fees and other concessions from drive-ins that wanted to show Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Knepp joined a loose coalition of regional theaters that refused to show it.

The embedded YouTube video of the day is from my pal Jeffrey Edling. He’s got a thing about going to drive-ins and recording a gentle 360-degree sweep to show exactly what it was like. I hope you like it.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in such great shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 29 / 39136 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: Since I was staying near the Kent State campus (see below), I looked for lunch there too. I found what I was looking for at the Main Street Continental Grill. It’s a little Greek hole in the wall, but I found the spinach and meat pies to be very interesting. One shish kabob sandwich later, I knew why so many locals were grabbing their takeout orders here.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Google told me the closest hotel was on the other side of the midway point at the Kent State University Hotel. It was a little pricey, but since it’s in the middle of the Kent State area, I’ll bet it’s an especially good choice for college visitors. My king studio had all the modern amenities, and breakfast gave me what I needed to face another cold day.

Only in Ravenna Kent: Kent State has come to terms with its signature event. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of unarmed Vietnam War protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. The May 4th Visitor Center provides a memorial to the victims and presents the context of the shooting’s times.

Next stop: Skyway Twin Drive-In Theatre, Warren OH.

It’s Day 349 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On a snowy mid-December day, it took only about an hour to drive from the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive In in North Ridgeville OH, passing through the south side of the Cleveland metro area, to the Mayfield Road Drive-In Theatre, a few miles south of Chardon OH.

The folks who talk about the Mayfield Road these days all say that it opened in 1945, but I haven’t heard anyone mention that it opened as the Hazelwood Drive-In. I know that the Hazelwood was around by 1950 or so, but I can’t find any other information that it existed in the 1940s, especially from the drive-in lists published at the time. Just call me a skeptic.

What the old reference books tell me is that by 1952, the Hazelwood was owned by R.H. Manley and Herbert H. Horstemeier, a big name in regional theaters. One V.A. Nelson was listed as owner in the late 1950s, followed by Carl Brinkman in the 1960s. Except for Horstemeier, I can’t find any other info about any of these guys.

The drive-in’s name had changed to the Mayfield Road by 1972, when it and manager Peter Maisano were unsuccessfully sued by a patron. (It sits on Ohio Route 322, also known as Mayfield Road, but I don’t know why its name changed.) By 1980, my old books list the owner as Maisano, and the Geauga County Maple Leaf wrote recently that the Maisano family had owned the drive-in up to 1993.

Current owner John Knepp bought the Mayfield Road in 1993. That year, a wind storm blew down the original screen. I couldn’t tell whether that was before or after the sale. The drive-in replaced the screen of course, and 20 years later quietly switched to digital projection.

Earlier this year when Disney demanded higher fees and other concessions from drive-ins that wanted to show Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Knepp joined a loose coalition of regional theaters that refused to show it. The embedded video of the day is from WKYC, Cleveland’s News Leader, covering that announcement while gathering some lovely images of the place.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in such great shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 47 / 39107 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: It looks like somebody’s house on the corner, except the busy parking lot betrays that something good is being served at Maple City Taps & Eatery. It’s like a neighborhood bar with seemingly every kind of food that goes well with beer. I started with a cup of homemade chili to literally warm up, then moved on to a ribs and chicken barbecue combo. With sports playing on the TVs, I could have stayed here all day.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Google told me that there aren’t any hotels in Chardon, and that the closest to the drive-in is the Comfort Inn 11 miles north in Painesville. On this snowy day, I didn’t want to drive any more than necessary. Cookies and coffee were waiting at check-in. My nicely refurbished room had all the modern amenities, and breakfast included some protein along with the classic Comfort waffles. If only I had some Geauga County maple syrup to go with them.

Only in Chardon: Every spring, Chardon hosts the Geauga County Maple Festival. The event was founded in 1926 in an attempt to market Ohio syrup in competition with Vermont syrup. The 2017 edition included one- and five-mile sap runs, the crowning of the festival king and queen, and plenty of pancakes.

Next stop: Midway Twin Drive In Theater, Ravenna OH.

It’s Day 348 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On a cold, breezy mid-December day, it took less than an hour to drive from the Blue Sky Drive In Theater in Wadsworth OH to the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive In in North Ridgeville OH.

The Aut-O-Rama’s history is a quiet one. It opened in 1965 (Cinema Treasures says July 2 that year) and has stayed in the same family ever since. “We actually opened this after the big wave of drive-in theaters in the 1950s,” current owner Deb Sherman told the Cleveland Scene earlier this year. “So ours looks a little different. We learned from the others what worked and what didn’t.”

One big innovation was the addition of a second screen in 1972, making the drive-in the Cleveland area’s first twin. “We were the first one in the area to do that,” she told The Morning Journal in 2013. “That enabled us to show a variety of movies and avoid being stuck with a dog of a movie.”

Back to that line of ownership – the recent newspaper stories about the Aut-O-Rama are short on first names. Deb Sherman’s husband passed away in 1993, and it was his father who started the drive-in, but what was his first name? The drive-in lists of the International Motion Picture Almanac tell me only that it started with G.

The Aut-O-Rama sits on a perfect triangle of land to help maintain its longevity. Active train tracks form its southern border, and the Ohio Turnpike passes to the northeast. Only one street leads to the entrance, and that’s a short distance from another interstate highway. That visibility and traffic helped it keep going through the lean 1980s. “That was a really rough decade for us and that’s when most of the drive-ins around here closed,” Deb said.

These days things are going great for the Aut-O-Rama. With the digital projectors it installed in 2013, it runs Retro Tuesday night showings of older movies. “I’m looking at ‘Easy Rider’ and a bunch of other films,” she said. “Maybe ‘Goonies,’ since people are always asking for us to show it again.”

The embedded YouTube video of the day is a superb profile of the Aut-O-Rama as it looked in 2015. It features Deb’s son Tim Sherman, and it’s got great shots of everything except the drive-in’s interesting marquee with comedy/tragedy masks. You can see a photo of that here.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in such great shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 39 / 39060 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: For some homestyle cooking not too far away, I stopped in at the Gourmé Family Restaurant just across the turnpike from the Aut-O-Rama. I had something I rarely get at home – beef barley soup, which I love but the wife despises for no good reason. I had it with pancakes on the side, because I also love breakfast all day. It was all great warmup food at a good price.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There was a Hampton Inn just five miles away in Elyria, so that’s where I went. I was going through withdrawal because of two many nights away from the reassuring, high-quality sameness that Hampton provides so well. There were cookies and coffee waiting at check-in. My room had the full set of modern amenities. Breakfast was the usual Hampton standard. Now I can try mom and pop motels again if I need to for a couple of days

Only in North Ridgeville: Just north of North Ridgeville is Avon OH, the self-proclaimed Duct Tape Capital of the World. (It’s where the Duck Tape brand of the stuff is made.) According to The Municipal, the town’s annual Heritage Duck Tape Festival include life-size duct tape sculptures; an arts and crafts tent; a fashion show; and the crowning of “Duck Tape Dad of the Year.” Plus the first 500 tourists each day receive a free roll of Duck Tape.

Next stop: Mayfield Road Drive-In Theatre, Chardon OH.