Minneapolis, Minnesota

8/19/2019 to 8/20/2019

"U Betcha" we visited The Mall of America

Monday 8/19/2019     We drove 226 miles from Wagner Park in Barnesville, Minnesota to Lebanon Hills Campground near Minneapolis and The Mall of America.  We stopped for gas along the way but the first station we stopped at was overtaken by trucks pulling the gigantic blades of wind turbines.  These blades are over 100 feet long. They took up most of the pumps and the highway patrol was blocking the others so they had room to pull out. We had to move on to another station.  We arrived at Lebanon Hills in the early afternoon and found it to be a very nice regional park with fairly spacious campsites in the full hook-ups section where we stayed.  Later in the evening, we went for a walk through another section of the park and discovered a more wilderness section.  There were large, wooded and secluded lots which really gave you the "out in nature" feeling of camping.  It would have been nice to have stayed in this section but they were electric-only or completely primitive sites.  We continued on and found a nice trail along a lake that was very enjoyable.  Among all this nature you wouldn't know that you were only minutes away from an extremely busy highway and a large city.

Tuesday 8/20/2019    Today’s adventure was the famous Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota which is a suburb of Minneapolis. It’s the largest mall in the United States and was built in 1992. Google says it has 552 stores and 42 million visitors a year. We parked in a large deck and entered through Nordstrom’s Department Store. The first item of clothing we looked at was a very warm looking parka made out of goose down. I looked at the price tag and then quickly exited the store. (it was $995.00) The mall consists of four floors full of shops and restaurants. Some are very high-end stores such as Gucci, Prada, Coach, etc. but then they also have the usual mall stores – H & M, Macy’s, Gap, etc. We walked around all four floors for seven hours covering a distance of eight miles and we only made one purchase. We did enjoy lunch at a small Italian restaurant. It was a perfect day to mall walk as the morning began with a storm and a heavy downpour. The sun came out in the afternoon but it was still a very humid day.

Wednesday 8/21/2019     We packed up and moved to the KOA Campground in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.  

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