Friday, July 29, 2011

Mall of America

(Ellendale, MN) Hi 86 Lo 65 --  After an abbreviated morning routine we left for Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul. We wanted to see the Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the United States. (There's a mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada that's the biggest one in the world.) The weather was beautiful as we drove a little over an hour north on I-35. There wasn’t much traffic, which made it easy to negotiate the many roads and parking decks once we reached the mall area.

The mall is laid out in a big square, with four anchor stores: Sears, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Macy's. The four connecting corridors have three levels and each court has a different design theme. A typical large shopping mall has around 100 stores. Mall of America has over 500 stores, along with over 100 places to eat. And in the middle of it all is Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park with 25 rides and attractions. Needless to say, it's quite a thing to see!

We started out by walking around the the amusement park. It’s quite impressive, when you consider that everything is inside!
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We then spent about three hours, including a stop for lunch, walking around all three levels. It's .57 mile around one level.

One place that fascinated us was Lego Land. It’s amazing what you can do with Legos! This whole wall has containers with individual shapes and sizes of lego blocks. You can fill up a small cup for $7.99 or a large cup for $14.99.
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These large figures are up on the roof of the store, and made entirely of Legos.
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Woody from Toy Story. Made of Legos.
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These kids were making designs on the computer, then buying the Legos it took to construct them.
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We went to lunch at Famous Dave’s BBQ. Jim had the wings and I had pulled pork, with sides of corn on the cob, garlic mashed potatoes, and cole slaw. 
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We did get to all three levels and we saw several stores we’ve never seen before. We also noticed that they had more than one store of some brands. We saw several Sunglass Huts, Caribou Coffee shops, and many Champs Sport Shops, to name a few.

Our visit was mainly as "tourists" rather than as shoppers. We managed to get out without spending too much money. I bought a pinkie ring and Jim bought a Miami Dolphins cap. Oh, and I also got a Mall of America t-shirt. (Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.) :) We had a great time and left before 3:00 to beat the rush hour traffic. What a fun (but tiring) day!

9 comments:

squawmama said...

We enjoyed the Mall of America too... Ate at Bubba Gumps. If I had seen Famous Daves I may have went there. Food looks great and also great photos!
Have fun & Travel safe
Donna

Bob and Vicky said...

Glad you enjoyed MOA - picked a great place to eat too! See - it's not always 20 below in MN as some people think even tho a lot of us head south for the winter.

Gail Houle said...

Isn't that a great mall? I really would love to take our grandson there one of these days. He'd be all over that Lego place!

Jim and Sandie said...

I've read a lot about MOA but never have been there. Quite a workout for you.

GGuncle said...

about 4 or5 years ago at the shrine of "our lady of the snows, outside of belleville,il.; they had a large display of stuff made with legos.mostly stuff to do with christmas, because it was that time of year.teams of people came in from all over the U.S. to make their project for that showing. it was really something to see. dom.

Leno said...

It brought back memories of our visit there. We have also visited the Edmonton Mall. Both are so huge, you get lost very easily.. It has been quite a few years for both.
Glad you enjoyed, continue having fun...

Pat said...

So now Jim can say he bought a Dolphins cap where the Vikings used to play. The MOA is the former site of Metropolitan Stadium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Stadium

Jeff said...

Do you know they are opening a new Legoland at the former Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven,FL. That's not too far from your Wauchula location.

RV Khronicles of Kevelyn said...

Isn't the Mall of America great. One of those places you just have to visit at least once.

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