First of all, you need a LOT more hides than 1 or 2... 2 is the minimum--one for the warm side, one for the cool side. The bigger the tank, the more hides you need for a baby (I answered your other question and mentioned this, actually).
Anyway, are you sure you can have a corn in NJ? I seem to remember there being some law against it... Like, you could only have red-eyed morphs (I suppose this is why you were looking at amelanistics--kudos on knowing the actual morph name!) or something... Other red-eyed morphs include any other morph combos that contain amel--snow(amelXanery), butter(amelXcaramel), blizzard(amelXcharcoal--whiter version of snow, charcoal is another form of anery), opal(lavenderXamel), fire(bloodredXamel)... I'm probably missing some, though. If you're set on getting one from a pet store, you'll likely only find amel and snow. You can also find professional, reputable corn snake breeders (definitely the better choice).
Heating/Lighting: Corn snakes don't need special lighting. The ambient lighting (indirect sunlight, room lighting) of the room it is kept in will do fine. If you want to supply lighting, though, you can.
It is thought that snakes benefit from UVB lighting, but widely accepted that they don't need it. Most species (including corn snakes) are either crepuscular (out during dawn/dusk) or nocturnal, and they get plenty of calcium from their food.
Heat pads don't have settings, and bulbs/Ceramic heat emitters are adjusted by wattage.
Terrestrial snakes like Corns do best with belly heat to digest, so use a heat pad. However, for a heat pad, you need a thermostat--even the ZooMed heat pads (which claim to only get 10-15 degrees above room temperature) get up to 140*F when left unchecked--and I'm serious! I actually recorded this on three separate ZooMed heat pads of varying sizes. For the thermostat, you can get a really good, high quality one like the Herpstat ($100+, spyderrobotics.com) or a crappy cheap one that does the job like ReptiTemp 500R ($27, petsmart.com--online only item). If you opt for the ReptiTemp, you NEED a digital thermometer with a probe to set it.. You need a digital thermometer, anyway, actually. Put the probe directly on the glass above the heat pad, UNDER the substrate.
If the room the snake is kept in cold (under 65*F), you might opt for a Ceramic Heat Emitter to up the heat... Low wattage, maybe 50 or 75 watts for a 29 gallon tank... It doesn't take much to get the air temps above 70*.
I wouldn't suggest using a heat lamp for heating. They dry out the tank REALLY fast, and really thoroughly. One of my girls has chronic shedding/constipation problems from an incandescent light I used to supplement daytime light over the winter. The humidity is still recovering, and I took the thing off over 6 months ago.
Traveling: Depends on the time you'll be in the car. 8 hours or more, definitely not. I've driven as far as 4-5 hours to take home a hatchling corn snake (got two corns and a sand boa at an expo, but the expo was a 4 hour drive from home). The snakes did great, but I kept them in my lap the entire time, which I was only able to do because I wasn't the one driving. Take a plastic tub (small food storage tub will do) with some paper towel in the bottom to carry him in, in case the store gives you a crappy cardboard thing (like Petco... they give you those cardboard rodent boxes that a hatchling corn can easily get out of).
He could potentially get stressed out from the drive, but that is part of the reason you should let him acclimate for a week (no food, no handling) after he gets home. You have less of a chance of the snake dying for whatever reason (i.e. parasites, mites, illness) if you get it from a reliable source rather than a pet shop. Stress lowers the reptile's immune system, so any health issues it has when you get it (especially with such a long drive home) have that much more chance of taking hold. If you get from a reputable breeder, the chances are that much less that it will be healthy and stay healthy.
Kudos for feeding frozen/thaw! I love it when people know what the RIGHT thing is!!! Lol.. For the mice, of course, you'll need a freezer. For a hatchling, a small (.5-1 qt) tub will work fine. 6 qt Sterilite tubs ($1 at Big Lots) are PERFECT for adult corn snake feeding tubs... However, the 6 qts are too big for a hatchling's feeding tub. Would make a good soaking tub, though, in case of a bad shed...
Also, do you know of
http://CornSnakes.com ? It's a great site for corn info, and the members are great. It's a wonderful place to go and skim, to make sure you don't miss anything... =)