Our time in Fargo at an end, we slept in on Wednesday, July 6, and then headed for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Without doubt, this is the single destination of our trip that offered much to do. What’s funny is that we spent the lion’s share of our time in one place: the Mall of America.
For a family that is not a big shopping one, this is kind of funny. But given that shopping at the Mall of America is far from the only activity, maybe it’s not such a surprise.
Anyway, our hotel was in the St. Paul area, so we headed there first, with a stop at Pizza Hut for lunch. We stayed at an Americinn, which ended up being a pretty nice place. It is definitely a budget hotel, but it had a huge pool with a sauna and hot tub, in addition to very large rooms, which meant plenty of space to set up Jeremy’s pack-n-play. It was a two-story hotel with no elevator, so that wasn’t great, but we found it to be a pleasant surprise.
After dumping our stuff, we headed for the Mall of America.
We knew that this place was obscenely big, but I don’t think we really grasped HOW big until we got there. The MOA has a full-sized amusement in the middle of it, and some of the rides go up full four stories of the mall. There were specialty stores of all kinds, in addition to the big mall chain stores (a two-story Old Navy, anyone?), and there was even a full-sized Best Buy on one of the floors. There were more restaurants than there are in most fair-sized towns. Really, this place is quite overwhelming.
Aside from the Wisconsin Dells, and perhaps it even came in first by the end of the trip, this was the one place that the kids were over the moon about visiting. In addition to the amusement park, the MOA also has a Lego store and a very large Build-a-Bear workshop. The kids had been saving their allowances for months to be able to splurge at these two places.
But first things first…the Nickelodeon Universe theme park offered discounted wristbands after 5:00, and that’s what this night’s trip to the mall was all about. The mall closed at 9:00, and we figured that four hours worth of rides was plenty. As it was a Wednesday evening, the crowds were not that bad, so Jeff and the kids got their wristbands and went to town.
As Jeff likes roller coasters a whole lot more than I do, he hung with the older two kids while Jeremy and I checked out the rest of the mall. Jeremy’s diaper had leaked due to his parents’ negligence in changing him at appropriate times, so my first priority was finding a store with inexpensive baby clothes so that I could get him into dry things. I found a Marshall’s, so I bought myself a couple pairs of pants and Jeremy a set of shorts and a top. Then, we just wandered.
Jeff and the kids took a break for supper, and we headed for the Panda Express. Then, it was back to riding for them and back to wandering for us. By about 8:00, Jeremy and I found a place where I could sit down and he could wander about, because he was pretty tired of being in the stroller by then!
About 30 minutes from closing time, I headed back to the amusement park and watched the rest of my family ride the crazy Sponge Bob roller coaster. They are backlit, but you get the idea.
We left the mall at closing time, the kids very excited about returning the next day to visit the Lego store and Build-a-Bear workshop.
And that was our first day in the Twin Cities!
In other news, I got in a 15-mile run today. As every run from here on out is my “longest distance ever,” I won’t dwell on that! But, in spite of the heat, it was another good one. T minus eight weeks to race day.
Have a great weekend!
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