Mall of America - Minnesota

The morning started out rough - we had 60 mile an hour winds and a nasty storm batter the RV about 8:30am. It rained until we left about noon to go to the mall. The temp was pleasant - about 75 so we left the windows open and no a/c on. Poor cats - when we got back at 5pm - it was 94 and so sunny and hot/humid. So - on the a/c went and it is still on as I type this. When will this awful hot stuff end?

For those people who like to go to malls and shop - this is the place for you - Mall of America in Minneapolis. Unbelievable. Built in a square, it is numbered sequentially by unit number and by direction (E135 for example - which mean this store is on the lower level in the east quadrant of the mall). Three sometimes four levels of stores and restaurants and more stores. Kiosks abundant through out. At times it was kinda hard to walk around - you dodge and weave around these kiosks and then all the people! We walked most of the three main levels and saw only 2 stores that were vacant. Some stores had multiple sights - just in case you missed the first one, have another opportunity. In the middle of the mall is an amusement park with rides. Some where as wild as you get at Cedar Point, some where kiddie size. And the people!!!!! It was a work day, school is not in session, and there had to be hundreds of thousands of people shopping, eating, playing. Glad I saw it - Dave has been there before, and now I don't ever have to go back. Mashu-mashu (Hebrew for UNBELIEVABLE!!). I did go into Macy's for some quick replacement shopping (underwear) and Dave went browsing at Best Buy. In total, between buying something to eat and what I purchased, we spent less than $100 today. Which in itself is truly amazing since there was some pretty neat enticements that I walked away from.

I have to say this mall is not a place to watch people - there were very few places to sit. However, to have a kid's birthday party inside in the amusement area - wonderful! I was most impressed with the LEGO store - some pretty cool things hanging outside that were made from those little blocks and about 5 feet in diameter. The most active store I saw was Apple and right across the way was MicroSoft. Apple was bombed with people, MicroSoft was so-so. Does that tell you what is HOT? Those little Itouchs/Ipads/Ipods/etc. are flying off the shelves.

Another observation was the kind of people we saw - predominately Swede / Norwegian / Scandanavian. Blonde, blue eyed, lots of very tall people. Very few dark haired people. And very few Asians. Interesting day.