A Blast From the Past

 On July 6th, The Colonel and I did something that we have not done in about 35 years...we went to a drive in movie.

There is a drive in theater less than 90 minutes from us in Ruskin, FL. It has been in operation since 1952 and the first movie played there was "Singing In the Rain". It is called the Ruskin Family Drive In Theater. They only accept cash at the gate and in the snack bar.

The night we went to the drive in, the new Indiana Jones movie was playing (it was the first movie of the night. We did not stay for the second feature...a horror movie of some sort...as it was, we did not get home until nearly midnight).

We had gotten to Ruskin before the gate to the theater opened, so we parked across the highway and waited until we saw the gate open.

We drove up to the ticket booth, paid our $14 ($7 per person) and the lady asked us if we had any outside food or drinks (you must pay a fee if you do), we said no (we wanted to full experience and wanted to eat from the snack bar) and she then handed us a menu for the snack bar with the radio frequency we would need to tune into to be able to hear the movie. 

We drove into the parking area and picked out our viewing/parking spot. We choose to park near the snack bar, as we were going to dine from there and the bathrooms were in the same building (bonus for me).

When we were settled into our parking space, I went to the snack bar to order our dinner. We wanted one of their pizzas and The Colonel also wanted to try their homemade chili. Both were very delicious. The lady who made the chili told me she puts a little cinnamon and chocolate in it. Our meal-deal came with two drinks and a large popcorn (it was delicious too). 

Before our food was ready, I took the opportunity to use the restroom. The Doe's restroom was painted in a fantasy castle theme...not sure what the Buck's restroom was painted like, The Colonel never visited the facilities.

The restroom was nice and clean. Finally, it was dinner time. About a week before we went to the theater, The Colonel and I built a little table for the truck. It was perfect to eat our dinner on as we waited for the movie to begin.

The movie started around 9 PM and The Colonel had our little radio tuned to the correct frequency and hooked up to our portable speaker system (which sounded awesome). We stayed in the cab of our truck, with the windows down (I did have to apply a little bug spray), as others chose to sit in lawn chairs.

It did get darker out as the movie progressed. I stopped taking pictures before then, so that I could watch the movie. The movie was entertaining (Harrison Ford is getting a bit long in the tooth though) but I think the novelty of going to a drive in again was what made the evening fun. The Colonel and I would like to do this again some time.

Lunch, Day-Camping Style

 

The Colonel and I planned a little lunch last month to "test drive" some new camping equipment we purchased not long ago. 

There is a little roadside picnic area up the road from us (we have had a little snack there once before. We had driven by the picnic area many times in the past and wanted to finally give it a try) and that is where we chose to have our "experimental lunch". 

The Colonel began to set out the equipment and food supplies.

He set out our new camp burner and filled it with fuel. It burns denatured alcohol.

We had to use the new wind break to surround the burner. It was a bit windy and at times the sky looked a bit dark.

The Colonel got out our new titanium cooking pot, filled it water, lit the burner and began to cook our delicious lunch of rice and chicken (we chose this meal for its ease of cooking for our first test run).

It took roughly 9 minutes to get the water to a boil and then 7 minutes for the rice and chicken to cook. It was very tasty. We were happy with our lunch experiment. After lunch we had fruit and then made instant coffee. Just as we had our coffee made, it began to sprinkle. We packed up quickly and finished our coffee in the truck as it rained.

SUCCESS!

Wordless Wednesday