Anyone wanna go to South Dakota with me?

This weekend, my teenager-from-the-60's fantasies came true all over again: I got to go to the drive-in. Of course, I grew up with a drive-in a few miles from my house, so perhaps it was more personally nostalgic than abstractly so, but either way you cut it, it made my month! Drive-ins seem to be an endangered species these days - afterall we can sate our watching needs on our iPhones via netflixs and really do need somewhere to park all our cars - so finding even a mediocre one is quite the accomplishment, but this isn't just any old drive-in: this is the mecca of drive-ins:

Valley "6" is smartly named. It is in a Valley and sports 6 screens. Six! They are all playing first-run release double features for 7.50 a person. In the center, there's a little snack area with video games and your regular mill of popcorn and treats, but also pizza. And the lots are done well enough that each row angles up on a hill, lessening the SUV problem substantially. Yeah, you have to drive to Auburn to get there, but it's a drive-in! No summer is complete without a drive-in.

Other highlights from my Mid-Twentieth Century blast of a weekend included a trip to the Museum of Flight. I have no picture of this, but you can use your imagination. I'm very sorry to say that the plane-car never caught on, because it was pretty cool.

Adjacent to the museum was something even more exciting - Randy's Diner. Randy's obviously used to be a Denny's, but post-franchise evolved into something bigger and better. Or at any rate it evaded the spat of modernization that has turned most Denny's into fairly generic and yet still unattractive venues.

Randy's embraces the uglier-the-better true diner aesthetic, while adding model airplanes and christmas lights to the pink and orange vinyl theme:

My veggie burger even came with classic potato salad on the side. It seemed almost sacriligious to be eating here at any hour outside of the 2-6 a.m. window, but still so exciting.
This combined with a jaunt past Snoqualmie pass down I-90 (the gateway for almost every one of my many youthful cross-country experiences) for a light hiking expedition around Mt. Catherine has instilled an overwhelming desire to go road tripping.
Oh the life of driving, diners and dated motels is one I appreciate all too well. Add some books on tape, a cooler full of snacks, gas-station gift shops and cheesy diners... and you have magic! It's been a long time since I got the chance for a good vehicular adventure adventure. My last trip was when I came back from Noho to attend WWU and involved the brilliant let's-see-if-I-can-do-this-entire-trip-straight-without-sleeping plan that amazingly didn't end in death or horrible pile ups. Since then I've really longed to spend a good week or two riding up and down I-90 in South Dakota, Mecca of the road-side attraction and good old fashioned pointless Americana. Unfortunately road tripping is kind of costly - there's gas, food, and motels to be fairly prohibitive to the student's budget. I'm afraid it may have to remain a pipe dream for now.