Day 10 - Mall of America, Minneapolis MN

Hey everyone!! Today Ryan and I were in Minneapolis Minnesota. We woke up and it was cold and rainy which was good because we were planning on spending the entire day at the Mall of America. We decided that we wanted to go to this local placed called Al’s for breakfast. Now Al’s is a place in downtown Minneapolis near the University of Minnesota and was featured in the book Diners, Drive In’s, and Dives. So we drove to this place and you really wouldn’t even know it was there unless you were looking for it. The place is literally a hole in the wall trying to be a dive. Ryan and I walk in to find that we have to wait in line in order to sit at the counter for breakfast. Granite, the counter only had like 16 places to sit. So we patiently wait for about 20 minutes, and it was well worth it. I had the blueberry pancakes and hash browns. They were both out of this world. The pancakes were very tasty (better than Denny’s) and the hash browns were crispy, just the way I like them. The restaurant really had a small town feel to it, and you could tell that locals were mainly the ones that frequented this place as determine by the yellow cards all over the place. I asked one of the employees what the cards were for and she said they were like debit accounts for all the locals. Cool place!

After breakfast Ryan and I headed over to the Mall of America, definitely a place that does not have a small town feel to it. Now the Mall of America is HUGE!!! They have like a gazillion different parking garages. So we eventually parked and walked into the mall. We walked around for a bit stopping into Hollister, Best Buy, Gap, and other places. At Best Buy I bought a wireless mouse because the one I brought with me on the trip crapped out on me. We also spoke to this guy for like 30 minutes about how Macs are better than PC’s. It was pretty informative, and they guy was really nice even though he knew we weren’t going to buy anything. Ryan and I decided that we needed to buy something from the Mall of America so we both got some nice tee shirts from Hollister. I normally wouldn’t buy anything from there but they had some nice and soft tees for $15. After walking around for like 2 hours Ryan and I had milk shakes and sandwiches at the Johnny Rockets which was pretty good. After that we checked out the Lego store and all of the cool Lego statues. I wanted to buy an Eiffel Tower Lego model but it was like $150 bucks so I decided against it.

Then we proceeded to ride this roller coaster called Rock Bottom Plunge at the Nickelodeon Theme Park in the middle of the mall. It cost us like $20 bucks just to ride one ride, which was ridiculous, but we figured we were there and needed to ride at least something. The coaster was actually pretty cool. For the first part of the ride you went up an incline vertically. Then you were shot back down and did some flips and twists. For being a little kiddy place, this was a somewhat intense roller coaster. After we did the coaster Ryan and I decided to see a movie. Since we are going to Vegas later on in this trip we decided to see Hangover. I already saw Hangover with Ashley, but it was so funny I didn’t mind seeing it again. Ryan and I definitely enjoyed the movie and hope our trip to Vegas won’t be as ridiculous as the movie!

After the movie Ryan and I decided to miniature golf before we had dinner. The artificial turf of the miniature golf course was hard to judge. Ryan and I ended up finishing even after all 18 holes. There was some dispute that Ryan had 1 mulligan and I had 2, but I am pretty sure we both had 2. Either way, it was pretty fun and it made us both pretty hungry. There was not too much of a food selection at the Mall of America (chain wise) so we decided to go to Hooters for dinner. We did this mainly because Ryan saw unlimited wings for $12 bucks and he was sold. So, we went in and I had a beer and a burger and Ryan had the unlimited wings. While we were eating there was a contest called “Are you smarter than your Hooters girl”. This was a contest where you faced off against your Hooters server and tried to answer questions for prizes. Lucky us, the questions were all Michael Jackson based because of his recent death. Ryan and I both lost to our Hooter server Anna so apparently we are stupider than a Hooters girl. Since we both lost we won like a bumper sticker and a clip thing. Don’t worry dad, we didn’t put the bumper sticker on your car. We just put it in the window for everyone to see. After dinner Ryan and I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep for our long drive to Rapid City, SD. Tomorrow we have a 9 hour, 600 mile drive ahead of us. Check back in for more about our trip to Mt. Rushmore and our tour through Jewel Cave. Till then, Chao!!