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Tuesday, January 21, 2025

2024 Summer Road Trip - New Jersey Pt 1 - 2024/08/08

It's been a lot of fun hanging out in Connecticut (and going to the nearby Six Flags New England in Massachusetts) but it's time to go to the next stop. We're just missing a few more states before we will have traveled to all of the 48 lower states! Our next stop is... New Jersey. Hmm. 


Theresa told me that my drive that morning would take us through New York, and I'd be driving the RV through the Bronx. Lovely. 

Traffic was not very fun at all. All the little cars trying to go places. All the big trucks trying to share the road. 

Driving through a pinch point where lots of trucks are all trying to get to the same place. It backed up a lot. It had the usual bad actors of people waiting until the last second to merge. People driving on the shoulder to pass. So fun. 

Eventually we made it onto the George Washington Bridge. 

And then officially in New Jersey! 

It's a gloomy and rainy day today. Taking a pit stop to make lunch as we continue our relatively short 4.5 hour travel day.  

Eventually we made it to our new camp site, the Butterfly Camping Resort. 
(picture taken at a later, sunnier time)

Not loving all these trees that I'm going to have to pull and turn the RV through (bad memories from year 1 travels and a wooded New York campsite). But we made it to our site with no issues. 

In our spot and all set up. 

We even had a bunny to greet us. 

What is there to do in New Jersey? Well I know one really exciting thing! It was on our list of places to go even before we had Six Flags Annual Passes. It's Six Flags New Jersey! We're getting here a little later in the day, but we've been hustling to get here so we could spend a few hours in the park before coming back tomorrow. 

What's so special about Six Flags New Jersey? They have lots of fun roller coasters, but there's one that is their real claim to fame. 
Kingda Ka! It is the tallest roller coaster in the world, stretching 456 feet into the air! For 5 years, it was even the fastest coaster in the world, reaching speeds of 128 mph (losing the title to Formula Rossa in 2010 that goes 149 mph). 
It's so high, you can't even see the top through the clouds.  

We made it! Six Flags New Jersey here we come! 

Or not...
We arrived at 4:52pm, plenty of time to get a meal and go on a few coasters, since they close at 7pm tonight. 
Apparently, Six Flags New Jersey plays fast and loose with their opening and closing times we learned on this trip. Sometime during the day, they moved the closing time back 2 hours to 5pm. They did similar things on other days, moving their opening hours an hour or more later, and pulling their closing time in...
That's no fun. 
So, even though we got there a few minutes before their new 5pm closing time, they weren't letting anyone through the entrance gates. The security guard at the exit just laughed when we said we wanted to come in just to grab dinner. 

So, where should we go for dinner instead. Costco is always cheap and tasty. The kids got pizza and hot dogs, while Theresa and I grabbed a rotisserie chicken and ate it in the food court. Yum! Where to next? 

There's a Chuck E Cheese not far away? Well let's go see another fun place to visit!
Except this Chuck E Cheese was a bit... odd. If you play the 2 minute drill football game, you can win 7 tickets no matter what score you get. 

They have an Avenger's Coin Pusher Theresa! The top prize is... 4 tickets. Actually all the prizes are 4 tickets. 


Alli played the Big Bass Wheel and won an amazing... 4 tickets. 

Want to play Spin ORama and get all the balls into the holes? You can win 4 tickets? But if you happen to get all 12 balls you'll win an amazing 4 tickets! Maybe the food will be better. 

The Cheesy Bread was fine, but instead of the usual marinara and ranch we've received at every single other CEC we've been to, the dipping sauce was... ketchup. Weird. 

Finally a game you can win more than a couple tickets on! There's a 100 ticket bonus! 
Except the sign at the front says you only need to score 450 to win the bonus, but the electronic scoreboard says you need 950 points to win it. Is 950 even possible? Doing some math, it's barely possible. If you get every single bottle (double rings on a bottle don't count), then you could possibly get 990 points. Except, they don't give you enough rings to get that many points... Boo. 

Get those 4 tickets for Basketball Alli. 

Surely Skeeball will have something better. 

Nope, you get 7 tickets no matter what. This Chuck E Cheese is basically trading your tokens for tickets no matter which game you pick. 

The kids are having a lot of fun with Galaga though, despite the fact that the back and forth joystick is broken. They can stay in one place and click the shooting button rapidly. 

Earning 652k points! 

Good enough for 1st place on the leader board! 


Well, that was a bit of a weird day. From the drive through New York, to the early closure of Six Flags, to the worst Chuck E Cheese we've been to for tickets. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

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