1After topping off the gas tank following a mid-morning oil change up at Yorktown Automotive up in Parma Heights, the already harsh blizzard conditions were deteriorating further as I started out for my Inaugural New Years Eve Blizzard Cruise down to Hamilton Ohio for the Holiday Drive-In Theatre Triple New Years Eve Movie Celebrations, and although I had over 8 hours to mosey on down and a general idea as to which routes I was going to take, roads were being closed quickly and the weather radar I consulted before leaving the house [and making sure I had extra blankets for the car since there was going to be a special “toast” at the drive in for their midnight festivities and temperatures predicting overnight temperatures of 17 degrees] made heading south a top priority and although Blizzard Cruising is fun, getting stuck in snarling snowy city traffic is not.
So I headed out on I-71 that had become one lane in each direction and headed down to my usual Lodi TA truck stop for brunch, kicking up slush that had frozen t each sides of the car and with truckers on the CB reporting better weather below US 30, I continued south on US 42 past Ashland, then headed out west into strong headwinds out on Lincoln Highway US 30 and picked up Route 4 south and cruised through Bucyrus and needing to make a stop to clean off the excess slush and side windows, I headed south on US 23 and picked up US 42 South bypassing Columbus to US 40 National Road West, passing the Melody Drive-In Theatre and cruised through Springfield and hooking up with I-70 where I completed the journey via Interstates 675 and 75.
With places closing early for the New Years, I found it necessary to get gas ASAP and fill up to make sure I had a full tank since I knew I was going to run the heater during the 3 movies shown with below freezing temperatures predicted [with jumper cables and flashlight handy as a mandatory rule for drive-in cruising -- if not your car, then for someone else], with 3 movies shown with below freezing temperatures predicted [and be able to get all the way back home] I finally entered the city limits of Hamilton [and in the immortal words of Elwood Blues: "It's 236 miles back to Brunswick, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark and we're wearing sunglasses!" "Hit It!"] and did a mini-cruise of the city and frolicked over some of their back road hills.
Although I have gone to Drive-in Theatres for over a decade, going to a New Years Eve triple feature was definitely a first, with the Holiday Drive-In being my fifth different one I had gone to out of the 33 which still "survive" here in Ohio [down from 270 original] and the Holiday celebrating its 70th year of continuous operation! I always find drive-ins to be a great value [$8 for a double feature where the megaplex cinemas charge even more for just one], and saw Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories along with Bolt and Twilight, with a special midnight "toast" of apple cider [between the second and third movies] along with party favors and special cinematic "Countdown to Midnight" on the big screen, and although the temperature was well below freezing and not your typical drive-in movie summer evening, it was none the less a great atmosphere provided by the owner and staff of the Holiday which made me looking forward to heading out after one of our UFO's Quaker Steak Cruise and head back on down to Hamilton Ohio this summer for another fantastic evening of fun entertainment, and finally returning home via the Interstates [where the Highway Patrol was cleaning up after the New Year celebrators, which one car was still facing north in the southbound I-71 lane near Delaware] to even more snow in the driveway around 6:30 am after 21 hours and 521 miles, 2009 was off to another fun year of taking the road less traveled.
Cruise: B [for Blizzard]
Holiday Drive-In A
Total Experience A+
Friday, January 2, 2009
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