A Night at the Movies Under the Stars

  A toddler with a mop of blond curls stares in awe at the giant screen, watching an epic battle play out before him in a galaxy far, far away. He stands between his parents in the Oldsmobile, captivated, not asleep like they hoped when they took him along to the Drive-In.
  I wasn’t even born yet but I’ve heard the birth story of my brother’s life long obsession with Star Wars so many times it kind of feels like I was there.
  Drive-ins are now quite a novelty with only 500 still in business today. I’ll take them at their word because I’ve lived in close proximity to one in all three areas I’ve called home the past three decades. Herrin, Illinois had the Egyptian Drive-In, since closed, but after I had gone to college. Bellville had the Sky View Drive-In which still stands, and finally, we’ve lived just a few miles from the Holiday Twin Drive-In since we moved to Fort Collins. So although they are an endangered species I’ve personally never really noticed a shortage.
  Embarrassing to say, we’ve lived here for nearly ten years now and had yet to visit the drive-in  just down the road. We’ve always said we should go sometime, but we’ve never made it. What can I say, we’ve always ended up preferring the bike in movies at New Belgium. But with a kiddo the bike in movies are out so it seemed like the perfect time to finally pack the Crusier, buy some Twizzlers and hit the last double feature of the season, Planes and Despicable Me 2.
  The morning of, before her eyes even opened, in a not-quite-awake-yet voice, “I’m ready to go to the movie…”
  The night before we told Layla we were going to go to the drive-in where we would watch not one but two movies on a giant screen. This definitely appealed to her.
  It was the perfect evening. Sweatshirt weather but not chilly. We had our moments as we always do now, but overall it was a pleasant evening. Wish they’d switched the order though since Layla was especially excited about Despicable Me. You see, she loves to watch movie trailers on my phone when the food is taking to long at a restaurant, or we’ve hit that limit in the car, and the trailer for Despicable Me has been a favorite. And you should hear her say despicable it’s got a couple extra syllables and is particularly adorable.
  She sat through Planes unimpressed, I have to agree, and was super excited for the next feature to start. The poor thing lasted all of fifteen minutes. But dad and I stayed and enjoyed the film, and when I got Layla in the car seat to go home, she began to wail. She had missed her movie. Luckily she was out again before we even turned onto Overland.
  We’ll try again next year and who knows, maybe we’ll accidentally take to her to some epic movie that will be the Star Wars of her generation.