A quick, but Great Escape

It's Spring Break in Essex County, N.J., and we just returned from two days at the Great Escape Lodge & Indoor Water Park in Queensbury, N.Y. Reader (and cousin) Kim will be happy to know the following landmarks are still standing: Aviation Mall, where I saw "Return of the Jedi" for the first time -- gulp! -- 32 years ago, the kiddie amusement park down Route 9 that I think was called Storytown when we were kids but is now called Magic Forest, and even Dix Avenue itself. We had a great dinner one night at Cooper's Cave Pub that required us to cross Dix.

Anyway. Back to the brief vacation.

Arrived Monday afternoon and went straight in the water. They have three tube slides, a couple body slides, a long lazy river, and a body board/surf wall. The kids tried them all, the latter only once. We were joined by our South Orange friends the Haydens as well as their neighbors for one of the days. The magnetism of a Groupon.

When we weren't in the water, we were in the arcade, blowing $60 on a fruitless quest to capture anything with The Claw. They did win more than 1,400 tickets though at Skeeball and a variety of other games. Came home with a Magic 8-Ball knockoff, a pair of handcuffs, some magnetic moon and stars thing-a-majig, a super bouncy ball and an eraser.

In the evenings (the water park closed at 9), the kids watched movies on the Hayden's laptop while the parents sipped rum and cokes and played Jenga. That game gets much harder the more you drink.

All in all, a lovely little getaway. I'm back to work tomorrow to finish off the week, Carey is home with the kids promising to spring clean.