Atlantic City, NJ

Atlantic City, NJ is on Absecon Island, a sandy barrier island on the New Jersey Coast. As with most urban islands, it’s hard to see the water on all sides defining it as and island. In this case the Atlantic ocean is on one side and the Absecon Inlet, salt marshes, creeks and the inter-coastal waterway cut it off from the mainland.

The Miss America Pageant has been held here since 1921. Beautiful young women compete for scholarships, fame and a chance as a traveling ambassador. The wikipedia article on Miss America gives some interesting history for the pageant including the original reason for the pageant was to extend the tourist season on the boardwalk after labor day.

Atlantic City boasts the first boardwalk in the United States opening in 1870 by hotel owners trying to keep the sand out of their lobbies. Prohibition brought a boom for drinking and gambling to Atlantic City, go figure reverse psychology working here. Then a economic decline until gambling was legalized in 1976 and the big casinos moved in. When my grandparents went there as a break from Las Vegas casinos, I never realized how new the Atlantic City casinos were. The lonely little lighthouse is a symbol of simpler times.

Atlantic City is also home of Monopoly properties. Due to business moving out and malls moving in, some of the properties have changed their values. Baltic and Mediterranean, the least expensive properties in Monopoly, host an expensive outlet mall now. ScoutingNY has an excellent post with detailed descriptions and photos describing how each property looks today.

It was fun walking through the Atlantic City streets and picking out Monopoly streets.

The Absecon Lighthouse still stands as a museum. We toured the city on Father’s day and Eric was honored with free admission. Absecon Lighthouse is the tallest in New Jersey but was decommissioned in 1933 because of the lights from the fast growing city surrounding it rendering it useless.

We all climbed the 228 steps to the top. Eric has a huge fear of heights which must be a problem for him since he’s spent so much time at the top of our 70 foot mast and climbed every light house we stopped at as well as the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. Eric did appreciate the bars around the walkway on the Absecon light’s walkway.

We continued our mile long walk toward the beach and boardwalk enjoying signs along the way. Roy decided to ‘hang out’ for a bit to see what would happen. This end of the city has lonely row houses. Each block is home to two or three of these tall narrow houses which used to have identical houses adjacent filling up the block. CityLab has photos of similar houses in Baltimore.

Once at the beach Eric and Roy thought they might like to take a dip at an unprotected beach. Mustn’t swim without a lifeguard you know.

In contrast to any neglect the neighborhoods on the path to the beach might display, taking a walk on the Boardwalk makes me think I should have passed GO to collect two hundred dollars before heading down this path.

The thumping music of Revel’s beach club greeted us on the north end of the boardwalk. Trump’s Taj Mahal spread the rest of the way to the Steel Pier and entertainment appropriate for the kids. Armed with a fist full of cash Nannie gave us before she left us in Atlantic Highlands, we had ice cream and beers on the boardwalk and then played a few carnival games on the pier. The kids always drool over these games. One year Disney’s California Adventure had a Halloween party and all the carnival games were free. Winners received a bit of candy but were excited to be able to play these games that parents normally say NO to.

The sign on the wall said that as long as 4 people played the winner could pick an prize. Marie was jumping around like a kangaroo so I put enough for 4 people to play, there weren’t any customers besides us which guaranteed a Mears winner. Luckily, Eric won so there wasn’t an argument and struggle over the prize. Marie the kangaroo picked an orange tiger..

Next we headed to the ticket booth to pay for thrills on stomach turning rides. They all wanted to go on one that catapults the passenger into the air on a bungee and of course there are the ones that spin you high in the air upside down
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In the end they settled for the Crazy Mouse. Marie wasn’t tall enough to go without an adult so Eric got to go for free because it’s Father’s Day.

This small thrill with have to suffice until they have jobs to earn the entrance fee for the catapult ride while I’m not watching.

We also rode the Ferris Wheel which gave a great view of the beach.

We didn’t all fit in one car so Roy and Genny rode together in another car and waited for us at the bottom.

The last of the tickets were spent for Marie and Eric on the Merry Go Round.

We were getting hot and our water bottle was empty but managed to squeeze in one more attraction. The town is getting ready for a sand castle competition and we got a glimpse of what was yet to come.