2024 Summer Trip - Lake George New York and Six Flags Great Escape - 2024/07/30

Today is another travel day and it's time to head further into New York up to Lake George! Just a 5 hour travel day, so nothing too exciting. 

After a late night, celebrating my birthday in Canada, everyone took a little bit longer to get ready and get on the road. By 11am we were hitched up and ready to head down the road. 

Nothing too far. Just headed East. 

About 3 hours into the trip, the tire monitor alert started going off. A slow leak this time. Not a rapid loss of pressure. I pulled over to the side of the road to see what we were dealing with. 

I still had the full-size spare on because when we parked, the RV was on grass and we were busy. I didn't think it would be a problem driving on the full-size spare. Well there's something I wasn't considering. The TPMS monitor is a little bit heavier than just the plastic cap. I think the weight of the monitor on that rubber stem bouncing around caused the stem to develop cracks. It was fine normally, but if you bend it a little bit, air comes out. 

Guess we're doing this again. Glad we got the tire from last time repaired. Just adding a little air before it goes on. 

Then another road-side tire swap. 

Made it to Lake George with no further issues! 

And do you know what is only about 10 minutes down the road from our campground? Another Six Flags! This time it's Six Flags Great Escape! Theresa also felt like she didn't want us having all the fun this summer, so she went ahead and got an $8/month pass too plus the meal plan because why not? 

It's 6pm and the park closes in an hour. 

But now we don't have to cook dinner after a day on the road! Many of the food places have closed early so our options were limited. Chicken fingers and fries for the boys. Grilled chicken sandwiches for the girls. 

With just a little bit of time left over to go on a ride. 

Greezed Lightnin' is identical to the Rolling Thunder from Six Flags Darien Lake! We rode again and again until it was 7pm and time for the park to close. 

With the park closing so early, we had time to hop over to Walmart to get some of our weekly shopping done. Ian is always looking for coins in self checkout. This time he not only found a penny, but a wheat penny from the 1940s! Cool!

The next day, guess where we went back to? 

Yep! Six Flags again! The forecast calls for rain today though so we're coming prepared. 

First things first, lunch. The kids wanted to try a Walking Taco. 

It's looking pretty overcast. 

Six Flags Great Escape is an interesting park. It originally opened in 1954 as Storytown USA, a Mother Goose themed park. In 1996, it was acquired by Six Flags, but you can still see remnants of the old Storytown USA park. 

They even have a Cinderella Castle. We were hoping to ride those sky buckets, but they didn't open for the entire time we were here. 

A short time later, rain started coming down hard, which was okay with us. We had other plans anyway. Just down the street is a tire shop that pulled the bad stem off the spare tire, replaced it within 30 minutes, and had me back out the door for just $30. Not too bad at all. 

After getting the tire fixed, we headed right back to Six Flags, now that the skies are looking a bit more clear and the rides have opened back up again. 

There's not too many thrill rides here, and the ones they have have mostly come from other parks. The Comet was at Crystal Beach Park from 1948 to 1989, then moved to Six Flags Great Escape in 1994. 

The good part of having Theresa here is that she can take pictures of us sometimes when we're riding! 

We got the front row of The Comet, a shaky wooden coaster where the "keep your hands inside the coaster" really do apply. There are definite sections where I can reach out and touch the beams as we zoomed past them. 

And because of the rain, it's not very crowded today! We rode on The Comet 4 times! 

Standing right in front of The Comet is Extreme Supernova. 

This pendulum ride swings riders about 50 feet into the air while spinning them around. With such a short line, we rode on it multiple times too. 

Pandemonium is another spinner, but it has a surprise in store. It also lifts off the ground and spins you in the air too! 

We tried to go on The Bobcat earlier today, but got rained out. We're back! The bobcats at the entrance are growling at us as we enter. 

Before we came to Six Flags Great Escape, we'd looked up to top rides and saw a toboggan bobsled ride that looked like nothing we've ever done before. It was a giant bobsled going down a trackless slide that looked pretty thrilling! But it was removed to make way for the Bobcat. 

Our timing was great because it just reopened! 

Front row please! 

The theming of the queue is styled after an old hunting lodge, with animals mounted to the wall. 

The kids liked the little bobcat stuffy watching us from the ride operator's station. 

You know, our meal plan is good for snacks too. Like a giant pretzel with cheese! 

And here they have a Coca-Cola self-serve drink station that we can use to fill our re-usable cup! 

They've got Dippin Dots here too. It's unfortunate that they're out of the Mint Chocolate, which Theresa remembers to be her favorite from high school. Ooh, Icee flavor. Might have to get that one later. 

Except they're not out of it! The sign wasn't correct! They have it after all! 

Theresa says...? 

Theresa - It's not as good as I remember it. The flavors aren't as strong. I wonder if they've changed it since then. 

Bummer, well, at least she tried. 

You know what other treat they have here? Dole Whip! That's right! The same as you can get at Disney! 

And that looks like a massive serving of it! Unless...

Whoa! Who would have thought? There was no "Void of Disappointment" at all! Amazing!

Our day is starting to come to an end, but there's a few more things I think we can squeeze in. There's one ride here that dominates the skyline as you drive by the park. It's huge and it looks absolutely crazy. 

Called the Adirondack Outlaw, it takes 8 riders 164 feet in the air and whips them around as it spins 50mph. It's truly one of the wildest rides I have ever been on. 

Ian had to go sit next to a stranger on the other side to balance the load on the chair. No problem at all! We learned he's a camp counselor from the UK, just here for the summer. 

Halfway through the ride, when they load the next 8 guests, you're 160 feet up and can see all around you. Then the ride starts again. It's like 2 rides for the price of one! Then you're 16 stories in the air, whipping around, and then everything aligns so you're facing the ground as you rush towards it, only to be pulled away at the last second, it is a rush to be sure. 

Again, Alli wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go on it at first, but then she loved it! She does like to be sure that she's clamped in tightly, as evidence by the marks on her legs. 

Those are some ugly looking clouds in the distance. We grabbed a couple more rides on Greezed Lightnin' and hustled over to the truck to get back home. 

Wow. Look at it come down. 

Good thing we're inside, enjoying apples and watching the Olympics. 

It's our last day here, so where are we headed? Back to Six Flags Great Escape of course! 

Today, we're going to be focusing on the water parks, while Theresa goes off and visits Planet Fitness. 

Grabbing a refill on our drink. Making sure we stay hydrated. 

We had such high hopes for the water park. Looking online, they had a bunch of slides that Ian was excited for. Like Paradise Plunge where you're in a tube, standing on a platform, and they suddenly release the platform, causing you to slide down 10 stories at speeds up to 40mph. That was closed, as were many of the other slides and even the wave pool. Bummer. 

We opted to go back to the front of the park and go on some of the rides we missed. 

Like Steamin Demon. It was a super short line, but it was so jerky that none of us needed to try that again. How about something more calm...

Adirondack Outlaw was once again wild. 

But we loved it! Definitely a favorite here. Theresa mentioned later that it seems like one of those rides that would be an upcharge at any other park. The only downside is the wait times. Only 8 riders can load at a time. I used my stopwatch to see how quickly they move through the load/unload cycle. 4:30 minutes. That's about 100 riders in an hour, IF they can fill every seat. For comparison, one of the most popular rides at Disney World, for some reason, is Peter Pan. They have a rider throughput of 800 per hour. Pirates of the Caribbean can push 3000 guests an hour through. 

We rode a low thrills coaster called Canyon Blaster which had us speeding past trees and concrete animals. 

And since we're in swim clothes, why not try the water flume ride, Desperado Plunge. I was amazed at how no-frills it was compared to what I'm used to with Disney. But then at the very end was a one-room sawmill with animatronics. Weird. 

The food places here seem to have their own set of random hours. I saw a place was open that served chicken wings so I had to try those. Not bad. Not great. 

This Six Flags has actually broken their water park into two different areas of the park. After doing some rides up front, we all headed to the second park where yes, there were still a lot of slides closed, but at least this one was open. 

Our 25 minute wait for a raft to come out of the giant funnel. Then it was our turn to slide. One thing about waterslides, they're over all too soon. 

After the Tornado slide, we enjoyed the short lazy river for a little bit, then the kids saw the water play area with all the other children and wanted to hang out there. 

That was probably where they had the most fun today in the water park. Even after T arrived, they kept playing! 

Time for some treats! Icees and Dippin Dots! 

One of the things we saw at Dippin Dots was Icee flavored Dippin Dots. We've tried a few Icee items, like Icee cookies, Icee cereal, Icee Frozen Ices, and Icee Pushups. 

The Icee Dippin Dots were very very similar in flavor to the Icee drinks. No carbonation of course, but right on with the flavor. T didn't care for it because the Blue Raspberry is mixed right in with the Cherry and there's no way to separate it. 

How about just one more time on the wildest ride any of us have ever been on! 

And I think we have a couple meal credits left before we head home for the night. What's quick and easy on the way out? Ice cream? The kids got a good laugh at how "off" Spongebob's eyes were. 

Well, Lake George and Six Flags Great Escape, it's been fun, but it's time to head out for our next stop on our summer adventure!