Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Picture: Valley Drive-in Theatre, Lompoc, California

On Saturday I made a real long day trip up the coast. After shooting for most of the day at Solvang, Mission Santa Ines and Mission La Purisima, I was heading through Lompoc on PCH towards Jalama Beach County Park when I spotted the Valley Drive-in Theatre so I made a quick U-Turn and went to snap a few photos. The theatre is now closed and there aren't very many drive-ins left nowadays so I had to photograph it. You can't see in this small blog post, but there is a near-full moon rising over the wall on the right side of this photo. I thought it was a quite fitting moment with the golden sunset lighting and moonrise over the theatre. Drive-in theatres have had their moment in the sun.

Seeing this theatre reminded me that I live near the old Route 66 Azusa Foothill Drive-in Theatre. It went out of business in 2001 and they tore the screen down a year or two ago to make a parking lot for Azusa Pacific University. The sign is still up though so I hope to photograph it tomorrow morning after I mail two stock photo submissions out. It's kind of sad to think of drive-ins going away as my parents took us to the Azusa Drive-in when my brother and I were kids. It wasn't the most comfortable way to watch movies for sure (I'm sure most people don't go to drive-ins for the movies anyway... :-) but it was definetely memorable. I wouldn't be writing about it here twenty years later if it wasn't!