Trip to the Near South - The Mall of America (day 3)

My body aches all over from two long days of driving. I could have survived this alone, but when I went to make coffee this morning, I discovered only decaf!!! If that doesn't sound horrifying, you may accidentally be reading the wrong blog.
The Hall of Mirrors symbolizes my mental state after only decaf this morning.
Today was our day to explore the Mall of America (MOA). Not being much of a shopper, this was a mostly disappointing experience for me. However, Anwyn and Leo found some nice jewellery and Leo and I enjoyed getting some new shoes. Perhaps my expectations should have been adjusted. After doing some reading, I discovered that the MOA is less than 1/2 the size of the West Edmonton Mall. I guess they left out the half of the stores that were interesting to me... except for this LEGO display ;)
My zoom lens only captures the foot of the 30' tall LEGO Transformer on display
Although everyone was exhausted, the girls eventually woke up enough to enjoy the Nickelodeon Theme Park. They did some climbing and rode several of the roller-coasters.
Looks fun, but for 40 min in line, I'd expect to be able to go WITHOUT the tether.
Anwyn told me you should try to do one thing that scares you every day
Mission Accomplished!
It has been fun boldly driving wherever we want with the aid of my iPhone's GPS. We had a bit of a scary moment on the freeway when my phone's battery went dead. I actually had to pull off the road and unfold one of the paper maps that Wendy made me take. Kind of fun actually. The girls ran through a torrential rain to buy subs for supper while I deciphered the ancient markings scrawled on an archaic medium known as PA-per, or some such. It was a harrowing ordeal. Let this be a reminder to all of you kids to always have clean underwear (or so my mother told me) and a charging cable on hand.

Back at the hotel, I had a half hour run (in my new shoes) followed by an agressive bike ride. Drenched with sweat, I feel like I may have counteracted some of that time wasted sitting in the van. I managed to talk the girls into going to sleep early.

There is a terrific thunderstorm outside as I write this post. I want to stay up really late to watch and take pictures, but I should really get some sleep. We travel again tomorrow.

I am going to continue to add new vacation pictures to the same album. Newer ones will be towards the bottom of the page.

Comments

rainswept said…
Despite your attempts to convey the contrary, it still sounds, & looks, like fun. Shame about the long line as the climbing activity looks pretty sweet.
11:36 pm
captainorange said…
It has been a lot of fun. I am enjoying the full road-trip experience.

I hope I don't sound too surly.
6:42 am
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