Discovering Maines' Rocky Coast With Kids: Stranded at the Drive In

Stranded at the Drive In, Saco, Maine

Jennifer Ellen Parker

Photo Credits - Jennifer Clark

The air hung heavy and the girls were itching for a change of scenery.  I had been thinking that they needed to experience an old fashioned Drive In movie, so I asked them to each grab a pillow and a blanket.  I pulled together some sports bottles and snacks and loaded up the car.  We picked up our friends on route and headed up through the back roads to jump on 95N.  We pulled into the gate off of Route 1 in Saco, Maine.  We were greeted by a tiny shack that screamed paint me and had been covered with graffiti spelling out numerous times, no refunds.  Our car was filled with excitement at the thought of seeing two movies from our car on a hot Summer night. The first was the new Ice Age movie and the second, the newest Batman flick.  I handed the attendant a twenty dollar bill and received five back.  I looked over at my friend and made a surprised, deer in headlights face.  She smiled and the girls clapped from the back seat as we moved through the gate.  There were remnants of the old speakers that used to attach to the driver's window and I used one of the poles as a guide to back in my station wagon so the girls would have a bird's eye view.  I hadn't realized that would leave my friend and I straining our necks for both movies or crammed in the back of the Volvo with the seats down.

We opened the back hatch and soon realized it was cramped quarters for all five of us. Anna and I tried sitting on a blanket in front of the car but were soon swarmed by mosquitoes. They had invaded the interior of the car as well and minutes into the first movie we found ourselves unprepared for a Drive In movie.  We had neglected to bring bug spray so I acted fast, closed up the car and turned on the air conditioning.  It was brutally hot and the complaining had just reached a dull roar from the new bites and rising temps. There was a knock on the side window and a man with a flashlight asked us to open up.  We were crammed in like sardines and it took a few minutes for one of us to be able to open the door.  He wanted to let me know that the running lights were on.  I climbed over the seats into the driver's seat and feverishly began switching nobs trying to discover the right one to turn them off.  The man shook his head and said, "Volvos" under his breath.  We finally found the right combination of moves to turn them off and I returned back to the cramped headquarters of movie central.  Every few minutes Libby would smack her hand against one of the windows and proclaim, "I got it."  Anna would squirm and try to rearrange herself making an, "I'd rather be home moan".  

There were multiple times throughout the night when my mind traveled to the graffiti that had been plastered all over the ticket booth at the entrance, "no refunds."  I silently doubted whether or not we would make it through the first movie, never mind the double feature.  Sometime after halfway through the first movie and just before it ended, I noticed the car had grown still and quiet.  All eyes were transfixed on the screen and the incessant buzzing of the caged mosquitoes had subsided.  I looked over at my friend laying on her back with her legs between two of the girls reading her iPhone.  I moved to my side and smiled.  It only took an hour for our children to acclimate to less than perfect conditions of watching a movie from a car.  I remembered that when my sister and I were fortunate enough to go to the Drive In, it was a special treat.  We didn't have a VCR at home, or even an Atari.  We rarely went out to dinner and candy was something to be treasured not expected.  The movie ended and the girls clapped and then proclaimed they wanted to go home.  We shuffled our positions and poured out of the back doors.  I folded the blankets and put the back seats upright and jumped into the front.  I turned the key to start the engine and instantly rethought the idea of running the air conditioning throughout the movie.  The battery had died a slow death and we were stranded at the Drive In.  

Two kind men from cars parked next to us quickly came to our rescue.  Who knew the battery for a Volvo wasn't under the hood?  We discovered in the manual how to charge it and within twenty minutes, our battery was brought back to life and we were headed home after another adventure, Discovering the Coast of Maine with Kids.