We left this beautiful place reluctantly, but we still had some things we wanted to do before we got on the plane.
It has long been a tradition for us to take a pic in front of any of our temples that we can reasonably visit when we are on vacation. Fortunately for us, the St. Paul Minnesota Temple was right on our way.
If you remember from about 5 years ago, an old friend of Princess's served a 2-year mission for our church in Minnesota, so I texted him. He had some great suggestions for places to visit. We were limited for time, but we did get a chance to stop at his favorite eating place, Portillo's.
It was a fun and kitschy place, full of regional food. My sweetie picked the Italian Beef and I got the hot dog, but the main thing our returned missionary friend suggested was the Chocolate Cake Shake.
Our tummies full, we left Portillo's to drive to the nearest Scheels. We had two reasons, first, a friend of mine is in charge of all Scheels aquariums and he was particularly proud of this new one.
Second, my sweetie wanted to buy another duffle to carry home all of our goodies for the kids, but we kept getting distracted...
After Scheels, it was finally time to check into our hotel that just happened to be across the street from the Mall of America. Now that we had a new bag, it was time to go shopping!
That Mall is massive! My sweetie made me take a picture of the door we went in just in case we got lost.
The first thing we saw was the huge amusement park right in the middle of the Mall. Sadly, you can't really buy same-day tickets anymore, so we were stuck outside the makeshift gate. Darn Covid.
The Toy Store had tons of things on clearance for 75% off, so we filled a bag with jewelry and small toys before we walked through the Lego Store. It had some amazing sets, but the most amazing things were on the top of the store. Besides, our bag wasn't THAT big.
After a quick hike and some escalators, we finally found a Minnesota store. I wanted to buy a hoodie, but they didn't have one in my size, so we got a couple of t-shirts and moved on. It was almost time for the mall to close when I finally found one that I liked.
We hustled back to where we came in (my sweetie has an incredible sense of direction!). We wanted to get back to our hotel before it got very late. Unfortunately, we had heard a few stories about things that have happened there. Besides, I had a lot more things that I needed to stuff into my new bag.😅
I do love Minneapolis mainly because my daughter lives there. We haven't seen a lot of it, but we did go to the temple last year. I loved all the fun photos and especially enjoyed the places you did get to visit. We haven't been to the mall there but heard a lot about it.
ReplyDeleteIt does look like you had a magnificent trip.
Have a safe trip home!
Hugs~