West Nile & Rabies In One Fun Night

Summer in our hometown is filled with free events. I dutifully thumbtack the summer program to our bulletin board each year, but as much as we intend to go, we've never actually made it to anything: not the outdoor movies, the concerts in the park, or the plays.

Until this year.

This year, the outdoor movies are: Grease, American Graffiti, and Footloose....three of the all time greatest movies ever! As soon as my husband saw what was going to be playing, and cross checked those dates with our calendar, he's been ready to go. I was a little more hesitant.

How comfortable can it be to sit on the grass terraces? When I walk up the steps of Terrace Park, I think those "seats" look awfully undone. They can't be too flat across and easy on the tailbone if during winter snow, the hill is a great sledding place!

But, I knew how much he wanted to go. And my daughter loves and adores Grease. And we did love going to the drive in movies last summer. So we went. We carried a couple of blankets and our sweatshirts and I fretted about how we were late. The movie can't start until it's dark, but I wanted to be seated way before dusk!

After the initial, where are we going to sit dilemma, which my husband and I can never really agree on, we were settled. I wished we'd brought snacks because what is a movie without popcorn? Not as much fun, that's for sure.

And what would a free outdoor movie be without the hippie running the projector? As he started the opening cartoon, the mosquitos came out in droves. I hadn't thought of that. Next time, spray ourselves liberally with bug spray.

Then the hippie projectionist said, not to worry about the mosquitos. Soon the bats would be here to take care of that problem. This might be the only place where we could get West Nile and Rabies at the same time.

And yep. You could look up and see the bats winging it above our heads, or in the case of my daughter, close enough she swears it touched her hair! Then the movie started and we were sucked in and it was wonderful!

Totally worth the extreme wedgie I had after sliding down our "flat" terraced seat over and over again. We are already counting down the days until the next movie! Although we'll have snacks, bug spray, and lots of pillows, and possible some baseball caps to keep the bats out of our hair!