Aug. 15: The Boonies Drive In Theatre, Tilbury ON

Posted on by

It’s Day 227 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey, and my second day in Ontario. I turned south again from the Starlite Drive-In Theatre, a few miles east of Grand Bend, to reach a drive-in that’s closed on Mondays. After about two hours, I arrived at The Boonies Drive In Theatre just west of Tilbury.

This drive-in began life in July 2012 as Stevie-Ray’s Southwestern Drive-In. Real-estate blogger Wayne Liddy wrote that year that  “(t)he project is a dream come true for Steve Impens, his wife Kelly and long time partner Rick Schiefer.” The Windsor Star ran a story with photos on opening day, which had been pushed forward by overwhelming demand. The article noted, “Kelly and Steve Impens are opening Stevie Rae’s South Western Drive-In Theatre on Richardson Sideroad in Tilbury today with the premiere of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.” Schiefer was mentioned only in photo captions.

In June 2013, the Star ran a much sadder story, that the drive-in’s owners had announced on Facebook that it would not reopen. “I received very unsettling news this past Sat that is inevitably going to put a stop to this project,” the post said. “I cannot express how sorry we are that we are not able to re-open. … You all deserve an explanation, and it is unfortunate that I am not able to go into detail at this time regarding the internal company conflicts that have resulted in the closing of the operation.”

The drive-in surfaced in August 2015, as the Chatham Daily News reported that The Boonies had opened, owned by Richard “Ziggy” Schiefer and managed by his son Jarod. BlackburnNews.com also noticed, writing that the site had been “sitting empty for a couple of years” and quoting Jarod as saying his family took over the facility when it closed. “We’ve been working on it for the past few years trying to get it back up and running and to get the interior all done up,” said the younger Schiefer.

And that leads us up to today. The Boonies had a camping day to celebrate Canada Day this year, and it’s still a mostly grassy field that accommodates about 200 cars. It’s got a single screen, FM radio sound, and its online concession stand menu lists coffee twice. I like coffee that much too.

At multi-screen drive-ins the past few days, I’ve been consistently choosing the movie Dunkirk over The Nut Job 2 in the belief that I’ll eventually be stuck with the latter on a single screen. That single screen arrived this night, and what it was showing was Dunkirk.

Miles Today / Total: 103 / 27344 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Dunkirk / 141

Nearby Restaurant: At Rose’s Family Restaurant in Tilbury, they serve breakfast all day, which is a sure way to lure me in the door. I enjoyed some blueberry pancakes, and since I was in Canada, I added some peameal bacon on the side. It wasn’t exciting, but it fit the bill for solid comfort food.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There really aren’t any hotels in Tilbury, so I stayed in Chatham, which was on my way to my next stop on the odyssey. The Comfort Inn there had soup and cookies waiting when I checked in, a fine Comfort-standard breakfast in the morning, and a comfortable room with all the modern amenities in between.

Only in Tilbury: The section of Highway 401 that runs through Tilbury, on its way from Windsor to London, has often been referred to as Carnage Alley, according to Wikipedia, in reference to the numerous crashes that have occurred throughout its history. That includes the worst in Canadian history, an 87-vehicle pile-up in 1999 that left eight dead and 45 injured. Since then, “no significant highway improvements have been made to the stretch of road between Tilbury and London, due to its rural nature and long distance.” Which I find significant because …

Next stop: The Mustang Drive-in, London ON.

Aug. 14: Starlite Drive-In Theatre, Grand Bend ON

Posted on by
The main screen tower at the Starlite Drive-In

Photo from the Starlite Drive-In Facebook page

It’s Day 226 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It was time for me to begin a few weeks’ journey through the many drive-ins of eastern Canada. Starting from Dearborn MI, I drove up to Port Huron, crossed the Blue Water Bridge, then continued on to the Starlite Drive-In Theatre, a few miles east of Grand Bend ON. It took only about two hours, not counting the time at the border.

For the story of the Starlite, I turn in large part to the Virtual Museum of Canada. It says that Emerson Desjardine built the Starlite in 1955 after seeing several drive-ins in Florida during winter break. He chose the settlement of Shipka because it was partway between Grand Bend (5.5 miles) and Exeter (13 miles).

That original screen, 40×60 feet, was built of plaster. Desjardine told the local newspaper that this prevented the cracks that can become visible on wooden screens.

Those classic in-car speakers were a continuing problem. “Desjardine said that about three dozen of his speakers were stolen or broken each summer.” That problem was solved when the sound system switched to radio broadcast.

“One feature of the Starlite was the windshield washer. Desjardine said that young local boys were on hand to wash car windows. If his window boy took a night off, people would ask for him.”

Desjardine sold the Starlite to Allan Barnes around 1998, and Barnes added a second, smaller screen in 2007. The Sarnia Observer interviewed Barnes in 2013 about his plans to install digital projection for the 2014 season. He said he waited as long as possible so he’d get the latest technology, and I suspect the projector price went down too. “I’m pretty much the last hold out on film, which probably annoyed the customers a couple of nights ago when the film broke,” he said.

It was a jarring difference after the huge urban multiplex drive-in the night before, but the Starlite is a different kind of drive-in heaven. In the middle of nowhere (sorry Shipka), there’s not a lot of light pollution. Refills on soft drinks and popcorn are just a quarter, and they show their own cartoons before the movies. (I always thought that’s a good idea to keep folks entertained while twilight slips to full darkness so they don’t miss an early movie plot point.) They even have free wifi!

I had no idea that I would be faced so often with the choice between Dunkirk and The Nut Job 2. At some point, the prospect of seeing Dunkirk for the Nth time should send me over to the animated sequel, but not yet. This was only my fourth viewing so far.

Miles Today / Total: 117 / 27241 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Dunkirk / 140

Nearby Restaurant: It was close to my motel (see below), but Aunt Gussie’s might be my favorite in town no matter where it was. For dinner, I ate a huge Hugger Cran salad with feta cheese, apples, and pecans. Then for breakfast I tried the gingerbread pancakes, with real Canadian maple syrup, of course.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Back to the kind of mom and pop motels that you find in small-town tourist destinations. The Blue Water Motel is a particularly nice example. My humble room wasn’t huge, but it had the full set of modern amenities including solid wifi. And it’s next door to one of the best restaurants in town for breakfast and dinner.

Only in Grand Bend: Grand Bend might be best known for the Grand Bend Beach, a vacation destination on Lake Huron. For more than a hundred years, the main beach has offered beach fans of all ages clean water, amenities, accessibility, water sports, and safe swimming with lifeguards on duty throughout the summer months.

Next stop: The Boonies Drive In Theatre, Tilbury ON.

Aug. 13: Ford Drive In Theatre, Dearborn MI

Posted on by

It’s Day 225 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Driving from the outer Detroit suburbs to the inner, it took only a half hour to get from Plymouth MI to the venerable Ford Drive In Theatre in Dearborn MI.

Karen Dybis wrote the book on the Ford. In fact, that’s the name of the 2014 book – The Ford-Wyoming Drive-In: Cars, Candy & Canoodling in the Motor City. Shortly after World War II, brothers James, Clyde and Harold Clark bought a vacant parcel to build the Ford-Wyoming. It opened for business in May 1950 with one screen, a glorious Streamline Moderne tower typical of drive-ins of the time.That tower is still there today. There was room for about 750 cars.

The Clarks ran the Ford-Wyoming for over 30 years before selling it to Charlie Shafer in 1981. Shafer was a big believer in multiple screens. He added two more within two years. By 1984, he had added a fourth screen, and manager Ed Szurek told the Detroit Free Press he wished he had room for five more. That wish would come true soon enough.

Screen number five was squeezed in before the 1988 season. Three years later, the drive-in expanded by taking over a plot of land two blocks north and setting up screens 6-8. The ninth and final screen was added before the 1995 season. At that point, all those viewing areas added up to a 3,000-car capacity, and the theatre began to make the claim of being “the largest drive-in in the world.”

In early 2010, the second parcel was closed and those four screens demolished. The drive-in was renamed the Ford, but its layout matches its 1988 five-screen configuration, and as of Dybis’s book, Shafer is still the owner.

Kristen Gallerneaux, Curator of Communication & Information Technology at The Henry Ford, has a great blog post about a 2013 visit to the Ford Drive-In and its manager that you really should read. It’s a great verbal picture of a venerable institution with new digital projection.

The video of the day is a bit of a prank. It was uploaded in 2010, and it’s just over two minutes of the old Ford-Wyoming marquee with its moving lights. There are also two fine videos of the place from Outdoor Moovies; they are really old (1995 and 2007) and low-res but great time capsules.

Here I was in the middle of the metro area, so it was only appropriate to choose Detroit as my movie of the night. It was a hard movie to watch, but I doubt that I’ll run into it too often in the weeks to come.

Miles Today / Total:  23 / 27124 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Detroit / 139

Nearby Restaurant: Ford’s Garage is such a natural fit for Dearborn that it’s hard to believe that most of the restaurants in this small chain are in Florida. There are Model T cars suspended from the ceiling here. I had the signature burger, including barbecue sauce, cheddar and bacon, with fries and a beer.

Where I Virtually Stayed: I was back to my mid-level favorite, the Hampton Inn of Dearborn. It’s close to The Henry Ford (see below), full of friendly people, and has all the standard Hampton elements that make me feel a certain continuity. There were cookies when I checked in, a room with all the standard amenities, and the solid Hampton breakfast in the morning.

Only in Dearborn: The Henry Ford is a museum of American innovation, an old-time village (that happens to have Thomas Edison’s lab), a factory tour, and the home of the Saturday morning show Innovation Nation, hosted by Mo Rocca. With all the car memorabilia around, it’s a great place to visit for any drive-in theater fan.

Next stop: Starlite Drive-In Theatre, Grand Bend ON.