Drive-in, Sleep-over

Sunday, October 6th.

Today we woke up in our parking lot, had breakfast at a Burger King and did a little shopping at a supermarket, mostly because we'd acquired 8 Canadian dollars that we otherwise didn't know what to do with. Before we crossed the border back to the US we wanted to get a sofa picture somewhere, to prove that we'd been in Canada. However, this little corner of Canada was not graced with the beautiful landscape that one otherwise associates with the country. All we could find was flat, boring fields which didn't exactly scream Canada -- or anything for that matter. We drove down the road to where it crossed a river, hoping for a nicer backdrop there. But the river was much smaller than we thought, and looked pretty crummy. So we scrapped that plan. Instead we ended up taking a picture on the couch outside something called "The Beer Store" :). Not very Canadian, perhaps, but we thought it was pretty amusing.

After that we headed for Detroit. The US border control officer was a bit more stern in his interrogation of us than his Canadian counterpart had been. Between the North Carolina license plates, the Danish passport and the green couch in the back of the van, we must have looked -- well, if not suspicious then at least a bit odd. But he bought our explanation and let us through.

Right off of I-94 through the Detroit suburb of Dearborn is the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In movie theater which, according to dependable sources, is the largest of its kind in the Midwest. That was a classic American experience that we just couldn't pass up, so we stopped by there to see what was playing. The movies didn't run until the evening of course but since the gates were open we drove in to have a look around. The large open lots and the empty screens were an open invitation for a couch picture, so we goofed around photographing ourselves watching a blank screen and taking shots from really far away and then racing each other back to the couch to see if we could make it before the 10-second timer went off.

Instead of spending the day in Detroit we headed east to the college atmosphere of Ann Arbor. We spent the day there shopping the used cd stores around town and visiting the library to check email etc. Later on we headed back towards Detroit to catch a movie at the drive-in theater. On the way there we stopped by a small river to take a few couch pictures. We had some trouble keeping the couch from rolling into the water as we took the pictures, but then realized that we could have some fun with that little problem. So Jens experimented with jumping up on the couch at the top of the incline and then surfing it downhill for about ten feet before jumping off to catch the couch before it went in the water :) We filmed this short sequence and have now made it available online! So we proudly present our first feature presentation, "Sofa Surfing". Click here to see it!

After that little adventure we went shopping for some things we needed -- and some things we didn't really need. Mainly snacks for the movie. And after a bite to eat at the next-door McDonald's we headed over to the Drive-In around 9 pm. We caught the end of "Men in Black II" and then settled in for the 9:20 showing of "Spider-man". We found a nice spot right in the center of the lot, reclined our seats as far back as they went and turned up the soundsystem in the car to a comfortable level. There we several other cars in the lot but by the looks of things we pretty much seemed to have the screen to ourselves. It didn't look like everyone had come to actually watch the movie -- some traditions just don't die... :)

After the movie was over we were about to head out to find a place to sleep for the night when we realized that we might just be in the perfect place already. So Jens went over to ask the guy in the ticket booth if we could stay for the night. "Sure, stay as long as you want, sleep here, do whatever you want" he said, and listed a few of the possibilities, apparently thinking that Jens was there with his girlfriend :)

After "Spider-man" they started "Men in Black II" again, so we stayed in our comfortable seats and watched that too. Both movies were very enjoyable and had good action and good laughs. And after they were over we just moved to the back of the van, made our beds and went to sleep for the night!