PINBALL!

In the early and mid 1980's, I spent much of my free time and money playing video & pinball games with friends in the Arcade at the Mall in Windham Maine. My favorite video game was Star Castle . I pumped $100's of dollars in quarters into that game over the few years the arcade was open. I got pretty good at the game but never beat it. The more times you blow up the mother ship in the center, the faster those little defenders come after you. It gets insanely hard in no time at all! Click the link above to see the game being played in a youtube video.

Collecting and tinkering on pinball games has been a big hobby of ours. Herman likes to play them and like I working on and playing them. We had 5 working pinball ball games (Embryon, Mousin' Around, The Lost World Jurassic park, Bally El Toro, Eight Ball Deluxe Limited edition) in our livingroom at our last apartment. We ended up selling them in 2005 after buying our own small home.

I recently found out that those days I spent in the arcade can be relived at a strip mall in Pelham NH! Yup, an arcade enthusiast has opened one of the best arcades I have EVER been in. It's called the Pinball Wizard Arcade . It's owned an operated by a woman named Sarah. She does all the maintaining and repairs on all the games in the arcade. She is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to video and pinball games.


Herman playing one of the all time best pinball games... Medieval Madness.

One weekend this summer, Herman and I drove from Albany NY area to Pelham NH just to visit this arcade. We had read a lot of great reviews on the internet and it sounded like a worthwhile destination.

The arcade has over 90 pinball games (and at least as many video games!) and all are in nearly perfect working order. We spent 9 hours and $60 playing nothing but pinball at The Pinball Wizard and we still didn't even play every pinball game they had! Show me another arcade that has Embryon, space invaders, mousin around, medieval madness and whodunnit ready to play! I loved that the owner is there the entire day and will sometimes play pinball with her customers.

Sarah played Medieval Madness with Herman and I. I don't like to brag so I won't tell you who won! ;-)


Sarah and I

We will make the trek to this arcade again. If any of my readers want to spend some time reliving their youth in the best arcade in the North East (maybe even the country?!), the Pinball Wizard Arcade is worth the trip from pretty much anywhere.

Sarah thanks for doing what you do. Pinball and arcades will eventually become "hip" again and you will become rich! Everything old is new again.

We stayed overnight in a walmart somewhere nearby. There was a couple nice VW based campers there. A Rialta and a Vista. Both are nice RVs. It's always fun seeing other small RVs. We didn't talk with either occupants. I usually feel like I would be intruding if I were to knock on a strangers RV just to say hi. If they were outside, I'd have no problem saying hello.
We don't particularly like having someone knock on our door when we're all "closed up" and relaxing inside our RV. Do unto others ...right? 

VW based Vista & Rialta Winnebago RVs parked near us at a Walmart in NH