Mall of America

I'm thrilled to be able to guide you through a brief tour of that enormous retail cathedral known as:

Evidently, due to the sad fact that the upper Midwest boasts no ocean or mountains or world wonders, someone had the very bright idea to erect a gargantuan mall full of stores to serve as a mecca for shoppers. And who doesn't like to shop......right??!!

This trip was planned by my art teacher daughter as a way to celebrate the end of the school year. When she phoned last weekend to ask her younger sister to go along, my first response was, "What! With these high fuel prices, you're going to drive way up to the Twin Cities just to go shopping??? When you have plenty of stores right there near you in Des Moines??". She sighed and simply answered, "Yes". Somehow, right then, the rusty gears started turning squeakily in my brain and I managed to ask, "Can I go along, too!!??"

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Mall of America is located in the northeast corner of Bloomington, Minnesota-----a large suburb on the south side of Minneapolis------and across I-494 from the Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport. From home, we motored north on 63, then caught 52 at Rochester and angled northwest toward "The Cities". At Rosemount, we turned west on 42 (a route we used many times in the past when the kids were little, on our way to the Valleyfair Amusement Park) and we intended to catch 77 north to the mall, but missed it somehow, and ended up on I-35W (leads to the infamous collapsed bridge) and I-494, eastbound to the Mall. A roundabout way is was, but it worked.

Surrounding the Mall are parking ramps, which are convenient, but you must be able to remember the location of your parking spot. We were in P3-Hawaii-West (info I scribbled onto a notepad) and we entered the 2nd floor level of the Mall between Eddie Bauer and Napa Valley Grille. I concentrated to burn these names into my brain so I'd have a reference point to use before plunging into the Mall's interior jungle.

My daughters and I had decided we'd split up and go our separate ways, so everyone would be happy. With cell phones, its no problem keeping in contact with each other.

Mall of America is on three main levels, a huge square surrounding an amusement park in the interior, which was where I headed first.......not to ride the rides, of course, but to take some pictures!!

As I roamed around amongst the boisterous groups of schoolkids on end-of-year class trips, and young parents pushing strollers, I suddenly saw this on the floor:

By golly, I've been to the big Mall several times, but had never wasted much time in the amusement park area, so I'd never before seen the plaque embedded in floor, denoting this significant spot! Yes, the brain gears were slowly moving......now, I vaguely remembered.......the Mall of America had been built on the site of the old Minnesota Twins baseball stadium!! Oh, my.......I realized with awe that Harmon Killebrew had stood right here in batting stance many times, and I gazed off into the distance, hearing the crack of a bat meeting a ball, with a home run hit soaring high beyond centerfield.......going, going.......gone.......into.........Hooters!!!

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Following my dreamy reverie, I wandered further amid the colorful rides.........why, look, those trees look almost real!! (I don't think they were, but I could be wrong.)

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Don't worry about doing stairs, here.......the Mall boasts escalator after escalator after escalator!! This set-up looked pretty cool all dressed up in shiny chrome! I'm guessing the distance around each Mall walkway is 3/4-mile or so, and there are three levels, and I went around each one a couple times.......oh-h, my feet hurt, from walking on all that concrete all day.

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My goal was to traverse each walkway on every level, and gaze at the colorful contents of the shop windows. Al's Toy Store had the "Cow Parade" collection on display........I have a hodge-podge cow collection at home, mostly gifts from relatives and friends over the years. I own two "Cow Parade" cows, #7703 - Tropicow! and #9131 - Daisy's Dream, only because my sister was kind enough to give them to me for birthday gifts. It looks like I'd go broke trying to acquire the rest of the collection!

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Whee-hee! Here's the newest ride, currently under construction........"Barnyard Party Animals".........wow, a farm theme........who thinks this stuff up!!?

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Now Showing......Old Navy!! Its an overgrown version, sprawled out on two levels, with its very own set of escalators in the middle of the store.

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What the name of this store is is a mystery to me........sorry........I really liked the pretty design, that's all.

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I became totally immersed in browsing, not at all aware of my location, meaning the strategically-placed mall directories were very helpful! My daughters and I would meet every two hours or so, eating lunch in the Food Court, and later sipping Caribou coffee while we rested our weary feet (well......MY nearly fifty-year-old feet got tired, anyway, even if my daughters' didn't!).

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An excursion to the Mall of America wouldn't be complete without a visit to "Legoland". My sons used to love this place!! Have you ever laid your eyes on dinosaurs made of Legos before?! Well, now you have!! Exciting, huh!!?

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Have I mentioned how tired the old feet got?? The cushy slippers in this "Happy Feet" display looked mighty tempting!!

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There were several stores of Minnesota-related merchandise.......this one, plus "Minnesota Bound", "Love From Minnesota", and several shops selling only Mall of America tee-shirts and miscellaneous tourist souvenirs.

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Occasionally, my browsing morphed into buying things........a couple pairs of shoes at DSW, and some shirts and clip earrings at Nordstrom Rack, a store containing all CLEARANCE items.......my kind of place!! The four corners of the Mall are anchored by Nordstrom's, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and good old Sears. In between are over 500 other stores and restaurants!!

Well, let's see........we arrived at the Mall around 11:30 a.m., and shopped until 8:00 in the evening! This actually is the first time I've ever done this trip in one day, as in past years we would stay overnight after enduring a day at Valleyfair, and then hitting the Science Museum of St. Paul, or the Minnesota Zoo at Apple Valley, before stopping at the Mall for a couple hours. Ah, yes, those were the good old days of strollers, diaper bags, etc.! I would take our four kids, and pick up a farmwife friend in southern Minnesota who had five, and off we'd go to the Cities.....two mothers with nine kids in tow!! It usually worked out surprisingly well. But.......I'm digressing......or digesting, or depressing, or something......

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This time around, a much older mother with her two grown daughters exited the big Mall and headed south on 77, which travels through the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, so named because of the Minnesota River which meanders through it. This photo, which was snapped hurriedly when I suddenly noticed the lovely scene, is probably as we crossed the bridge over Long Meadow Lake. I wish I'd gotten more of the railroad bridge shadow in the picture.

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Then it was a three-and-a-half hour drive to home again, with a stop in Rochester for a sandwich and ice cream, and to stretch......goodness, I could hardly move by then. My older daughter, bless her, felt like driving the whole way home, leaving me to doze and nod. I was awake enough to notice, though, that she was constantly changing the stations on the radio........just like her dad, who has the annoying habit of constantly changing the TV channels! We arrived home, safe and sound, around midnight.

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Our shopping junket to the Mall of America was great fun!! If you ever find yourself in the Twin Cities area and have a hankering to get away from nature and indulge in materialism, then do visit the gigantic Mall! You can zone out and explore another world for awhile!