Once again I was informed about a fair to add to the carnival list. It was in Mendham which is a fairly quick, back road drive from my place. I didn’t have much time to visit, on top of that scattered showers were popping up throughout the day, but I pressed on. It would likely be the final fair of 2013, after all (but not the final carnival trip report!)
I did a once over on Google maps, and headed off, confident in my newly found navigational skills. Well, I took a wrong turn and had to load up the GPS on my phone…hrmph. As I drove into Mendham, it started to rain. Wonderful. So I grabbed an umbrella from the backseat and ventured out to the fair. McDaniel Brothers Shows was doing the spot, and the fair had:
- Tempest
- Swinger
- Octopus
- Gravitron
- Scrambler
- Ferris Wheel
- Merry-go-Round
- Super Slide
- Sooper Jet (kiddie coaster)
- Kid Power (tiny funhouse)
- Quite a few kiddie rides
- An assortment of games
- A handful of greasy treats
Upon entering, I immediately marched over to Tempest in the now steady rain; I seriously haven’t seen a Watkins Tempest ride in over 15 years. I didn’t make it the the Warren Lions Expo this year but it looks like Tempest was there as well, leading me to believe that McDaniel Brothers Shows now has a Tempest instead of Hustler. Anyway, it wasn’t running, nor even had a ride operator present, so I snapped two quick photos. It looked pretty cool with a green and yellow color scheme, white and yellow lighting, and those umbrella decorations above the cars. Depending on how fast they run this ride, I definitely want to take a spin at some point in the future.
To the left was an Eli Bridge Ferris Wheel which seemed to be fully loaded despite the rain. Perhaps they were in the process of unloading, I don’t know; I basically just glanced at it, snapped a picture, and did a 180 to check out Octopus. Much like my futile adventures in photographing a Tilt-a-Whirl, getting a good Octopus photo also seems to be a crapshoot.
Rain was blowing under the umbrella a bit now, so I rattled off a few photos of Swinger, Scrambler and Gravitron before plodding back to the car. I spent a grand total of 15 minutes at the fair. It was a good carnival, but the conditions sucked. That’s about all there was to it!
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Hey there Brian sorry I haven’t had the time to come on here for a while, kinda been busy lately..but I’m here now 🙂
And wow this carnival sure looks kinda boring don’t you think? The only good ride I see is the Octopus. I wonder what happened to McDaniel’s Screamer ride? I’ve haven’t seen it since last year.
Also, this isn’t the final fair/carnival of this year. The final one is the Mercer County Italian Fest at Mercer County Park near Trenton..and Majestic will host their rides there for the 2nd year in a row 😀 Hopefully they’ll bring the Zipper, Wipeout, and Ring of Fire again this year 🙂
Hey Robert! Well, a fair is a fair I guess. Tempest is a pretty awesome ride if they actually run it fast but I have no idea if they do.
True, it’s not the last fair but it’s probably going to be the last fair for me as I’ll be focusing on going to Six Flags (I have a season pass that I haven’t used up until last week!), Dorney Park, and probably Coney again.
Did you get to any good fairs this year?
Well, the Tempest would be better if the whole thing spins fast in the same rotation 🙂
Wouldve been worth the hour and 15 minute drive for you just to check it out but I see you’re gonna try enjoying more of Fright Fest at Six Flags before..Mother Nature could potentially ruin..yet another Halloween huh?
Oh and yes I have been to some but not all of them this year..cause some of them I couldn’t afford it. The only ones me and my bff Chris went to were the St. Virgil’s Church Carnival (We celebrated his 21st birthday there riding Blue Sky’s Zipper for 3 rounds), The North Brunswick Youth Sports Fest (we celebrated my 23rd birthday on a Friday..wasn’t really that crowded cause it got rained out a bit but wasn’t a complete washout thank goodness, but I went 2 Saturdays alone to watch the fireworks)
And the ones I went alone are State Fair Meadowlands on the 3rd and 4th of July for the fireworks and boy was it Packed! I rode the Reithoffer’s Tornado (Huss Flipper) twice..to me it’s probably much worse than the Space Roller lol. I went to the Freedom Fest to meet the Lizard Lick Towing (towing show on TruTV on Monday nights), took a photo with them too. Reithoffer’s white, orange, and blue Zipper there is always intense. It also appeared at the Carnevale Italiano, which I had the chance to go there this year because I felt bored at home, and there was probably nothing good on TV that Saturday night I went.
I had to miss out on the Middlesex County Fair this year cause there has been some car issues.. :-/ And the most recent one I’ve been to was on Labor Day weekend (Saturday of course).and that was the day I was in Allentown, PA the entire Saturday 🙂 I went to Dorney Park for a while until probably 6 or 7pm I don’t remember, lol it was around sunset 🙂
And then I was at the Allentown Fair until 11pm, the time the fair closed..wow, and last year it closed at midnight on a Saturday.
Though I did went to Six Flags once during the Spring and Hurricane Harbor once this summer. And I’ll probably do Six Flags again once or twice this October 🙂
Shame that Rolling Thunder will be demolished for the new drop rides next year..but hey it’s all old and beaten down like all other woodies nowadays
Sounds like you got to quite a few fairs! I thought about going to Freedom Fest (probably would have done a split, Six Flags/Freedom Fest trip) but didn’t get down there. Allentown Fair was pretty good, I was there on Friday, August 30th. Did you notice if Rock Star was running that night? The ARM Ali Baba ride with a rock theme? That was one of Powers’ new rides but It was down all night on Friday.
Well you already know I love going to huge fairs with the Zipper ride, fighting it like the “Karate Kid” Daniel LaRusso (yes the 1980s trilogy with Mr. Miyagi in it) more than going to theme parks..cause I sure don’t like to deal with 2 hour long lines a lot..just to ride a 30 second coaster lol. Funny thing that Freedom Fest has Six Flags as their sponsor every year
Yeah Allentown Fair was surely awesome. One thing I liked was the Wave Swings ride, they played my favorite song, perfect for the Zierer Wave Swing rides at night called “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, “It’s like I’m a mirror..My mirror staring back at me..” Such an awesome song..and he killed it at the VMAs this year
It was played tthroughout the entire ride while the LED lights were changing colors that night..I Loved It..really made my life complete The carnies running that kind of ride at the NBYSF this year played that song too but they stopped it on the final chorus -_-
Oh and yes the Rock Star was running on the Saturday night I was there. Probably because they were doing some high quality maintenance on it on the Friday night you went. Though I miss their Spin Out and Sky Wheel (double ferris wheel)