8th July - Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota

Mega Lego sculpture!

Today we left relatively early (well for people on holiday – 10.30am) and headed to MOA! How exciting! We found a good parking spot right near Macy’s. And in we went! Through Macy’s which is just a regular department store, much like Myer or David Jones. Then suddenly we were in the mall and seeing all of its mall goodness. Brought back some fond memories of the many hours I spent at Chadstone, Melbourne. Sigh. I am definitely a binge shopaholic.

We walked to the centre of the mall and saw the Legoland store! It was awesome! And there were huge sculptures made out of Lego – a dragon, a spaceman, some pirates. It was amazing and I was jealous of whoever was lucky enough to build these things! We went into the Lego store and marvelled at all the different things. All Lego of course. Childhood memories came flooding back of Eric and I building enormous Lego castles and towers that were two metres tall. Made me want to go home and play with all my Lego! Instead I was happy to quickly whip up a house at the play stations they had set up there. I was pretty impressed with my effort – colour coordinated, tiled and only took about 3 minutes. I felt right at home with the all the kids there haha. 

We wandered out of Lego heaven and into rollercoaster central! Yup, inside the actual mall is a series of crazy little rollercoasters. It’s no Movie World, but it’s something Chadstone should think about! Something for Dad and the kids to do while Mom shops up a storm. There was one that zipped around and spun at the same time, one that went straight up, rested on the crest and raced straight down (made my stomach churn just looking at it). There were the swinging rides and the ones that tipped everyone upside down. It was pretty crazy having this in a mall! Will lost $5 trying to win me a monkey at the side shows. Rigged! 

Lego Woody.

Then it was time to shop. Lulu Lemon was first on the list, a Canadian work-out gear brand that roommate Heather used to wear a lot of. Awesome! A pair of tights, shorts and a hoodie later and the shopping had begun!

We went to many many shops that day and tried our best to get around the first floor of the mall. There are three floors, but the main shops are on the first and second. I did my best to limp around shops and then rip off the boot when I was trying things on – shorts were particular difficult! Will had to make a trip to Betsey just before lunch to unload the shopping I’d done! I even managed to buy two pairs of shoes – I did think about this yesterday. I tried on the left shoe and hopped around on it and if it felt comfortable, I bought them. Bargain shoes were the Nike runners that have just come out at home and are super light – at home they are $180 and I bought them for $80. Awesome.

It was a lovely day of shopping and spending money. It has been a while since I went shopping so it was great to get some new clothes!

My little Lego house!

We returned to the RV park at about 5pm, tired but with one very happy injured Jen! Dinner and then an early night, ready for the next day of shopping! We did talk to the neighbours for a bit too. They are from half an hour away (!!) and are camping for the weekend. They were trying to fit a huge fifth-wheeler in a space that may have been a little too small, so Will offered to swap. They declined and somehow managed to park their SUV in front of the fifth-wheeler. Probably sideways. They had three little kids and together they lit a huge fire and made s’mores. Then they left this fire burning and went to bed at like 9pm. I wanted to go out and ‘steal’ their fire (well sit around it anyway), but I couldn’t be bothered. Relatively early night ready for another epic day!