Monday, August 22, 2022- American Dream Meadowlands, East Rutherford, New Jersey

      A few weeks ago, Julie commented that she was glad that we made the pilgrimage to the Peppa Pig Theme Park when we did.  The "sweet spot", the zenith in Peppa's popularity with Abby, was back over Easter, and that's a big part of the reason that we took the trip when we did. We figured that her interest in the character would wane sometime soon, and we were right.  She still likes Peppa, but the program that dominates the TV in our living room (...and the DVD player in the car... and the YouTube videos on the phone) is Blaze and the Monster Machines.  When Julie made her comment, Scott jokingly said that it's a good thing that there isn't a Blaze theme park.  Then he made the mistake of Googling if there really is one.  There isn't an entire park devoted to Blaze, but he does have a ride devoted to him and his friends at the American Dream mall in New Jersey.  We were near this area only two weeks ago with Julie's parents, and we had looked for a way to try to make it to the Blaze ride, but it wasn't going to work then.  It didn't take us long to decide to take one more trip this summer and return to New Jersey. It would be this summer's last hurrah, and there was probably part of us that wanted to do it just because it was such a crazy thing to do.  "A.J., Gimme some speed.  Let's blaze."

     The Blaze ride is part of the Nickelodeon Universe at the American Dream Meadowlands mall complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  The American Dream mall is the second largest mall in the United States (the largest, of course, is the Mall of America in Minnesota, which we visited five years ago in 2017).  It is part of the Meadowlands Sports Complex, so it sits adjacent to the stadium where the New York Giants play football.  Within the mall is an enormous water park, a year-round ice-rink, and a lot of other attractions besides just stores.  The Nickelodeon Universe is billed as the largest indoor theme park in the Western Hemisphere.  There is a similar but smaller Nickelodeon Universe in the Mall of America in Minnesota, but interestingly, it looks like the Blaze ride is only found at the one in New Jersey.

     There was going to be about six hours of actual driving time today, but we were able to take it easy getting up this morning and left home around 9:00.  We stopped at a rest stop in New York that ended up having a playground that was just Abby's size and let her play there for about twenty minutes.  We stopped again at McDonalds for lunch and we weren't rushing.  There were some thunderstorms and a couple of accidents as we came in to New Jersey, but we ended up arriving at the mall before 4:00.  We parked the car in the garage and went inside.  Our first real stop was the food court, where we had our dinner.  This part of the mall was three floors high and the food court was at the top.  We didn't see much of the area for the stores, but what we did seemed like it had a lot of vacant retail spaces that could have been used but weren't.  When we got to the Nickelodeon Universe, it was about 5:00, and we would have about three hours to play there before it closed at 8:00.  We paid admission for Julie and Emma to ride the rides.  Abby rode for free as long as she was with them.  Scott was content just to take pictures and video.  

     The first ride to the left of the escalators as we entered was the one we were looking for- "Blaze's Monster Truck Rally."  It is a kiddie ride, consisting of a train of four trucks- Blaze, Crusher, Starla, and Zeg.  Abby was excited but surprised to see it because we hadn't told her about it.  She got to ride Starla on her first go-round, and big-sister Emma rode with her. Really, the track was quite small and the ride was short, but the trucks and the scenery look great and it was just Abby's speed.   She didn't want to leave the ride when her turn was done.   

     Nearby was "Blue's Skiddoo," where Blue and Magenta circle around in a ride that is similar to the Dumbo ride.  The "Thinking Chair" is nearby, and we got a picture in that before the night was over.  Next to that was a large splash of Nickelodeon's trademark Green Slime.  This "slime" wasn't slimy, or even liquid though.  It was hard plastic and inviting for kids to climb over, under and through.  Abby loved it and went crazy as she ran around and around it.  She returned to this big green monument several times over the course of the evening, and she probably would have been content to just scramble over that all day.

     There were a few other rides in that vicinity that Abby went on.  There was a cupcake ride.  She hadn't liked the teacups at the Magic Kingdom, but the girls took it slower this time and Abby had warmed up to it by the end and she had it spinning while she squealed and giggled.  A magic carpet ride, similar to Aladdin's at Disney was next.  The scale of all of these rides was smaller than at Disney, so it's a good thing that Emma had decided to come with us.  She fit into the rides better than we did.  When she took Abby on the Blaze ride for the second time, they got to ride together on Crusher.  Since he always cheats, Emma wisely told Abby that once the ride stopped, they were going to get the big shiny trophy that was standing out front.  It was a great idea because Abby was excited to rush to the trophy instead of crying that she had to get off like she did the first time.

     Julie took Abby on a double-decker merry-go-round that was completely made of "Reptar" dinosaurs from Rugrats.  After that, Abby found the playground themed around the Paw Patrol.    It really did look a lot like Adventure Bay from the cartoons and Abby had a ball there.  She loved this area and spent a while crawling over the obstacles and building with large foam blocks.  It was hard to keep up with her as she scrambled up a wall to a second level there.  There are some serious roller coasters at this park too, and Emma ended up riding on the "Shredder," named after the bad guy from the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It's not only a roller coaster, but the cars also spin on the tracks as well.  Then there was enough time for one last ride on Blaze's Monster Truck Rally, and this time, Abby and Emma rode on Blaze himself.  The park was closing a few minutes after that, at 8:00.

     There was one last thing we could ride together though.  At the food court where we had dinner, there was the entrance to the Dream Wheel- a 235-foot Ferris wheel.  We all rode together in one of the gondolas and got to see a nighttime view of the lights from the Manhattan skyline.  We Facetimed Anna as we were going up so she got to see a little bit of the view with us.  We had crammed a lot into our couple of hours here and had "squeezed the day," as Julie says.  It had been an expensive couple of hours, but we got everything we could out of it. 

      Our hotel was about 20 minutes away, in Orange, NJ.  In spite of an initial mix-up, Julie was able to work it so that the hotel room was entirely paid for with points that we had earned in our hotel stays over the summer.  The suite is larger than any of the hotel rooms that we stayed in this summer, though.

Post script: Abby got sick during the night last night- fever and throwing up.  Julie went out in the middle of the night to get her some Children's Tylenol.  She seems a little better this morning.  Julie had been sick a few nights ago but it passed quickly.  We're hoping it is that same bug.  Either way, we won't be swimming in the hotel pool this morning like we had planned.  Instead, we will be heading home slowly but surely.