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.