Postcard from Minneapolis

This is a big mall! I am talking about the Mall of America. If you go to Minneapolis, you can find it right next to the airport. Its a fun place to wander around and see how big a mall can be…and that is what I did. I didn’t spend any money except for a cup of coffee at one of the Starbucks. Yes, there is more than one Starbucks inside this massive mall.

It is shaped basically like a rectangle so one can walk all around it...I did that too, bad knee and all. Opened in1992, the stores are are located on three levels, although I have seen a fourth level for offices. And speaking of stores, there are over 400 of them. Wow! Hard to believe I could walk past almost all these stores without buying anything but coffee.

I noticed on the directory that both Apple and Microsoft had stores here. So I decided to check out the Apple store first. But amazingly the Microsoft Store was located right across from it. Talk about two rivals being so close together. Anyway, it made it quite easy to visit both of them. The Apple Store looked just like most of the Apple Stores I’ve visited. The Microsoft Store was quite a bit larger. That day, they were demonstrating the Vive VR headset which I tried out for 15 minutes. That was really fun. If you want to read about it, check out yesterday’s tech blog.

What is really unique about the Mall of America is the very large amusement park in the middle of the mall. I said large and I mean LARGE. It is called the Nickelodeon Universe. It is big enough to hold 3 roller coasters and several other large rides. While I did not go on any of them, it was fun watching the whole operation. It is quite a place.

The different parts of the center all look different. This picture shows the south side of the square. Look close and you can see all three shopping levels. Of course, there are many kinds of restaurants and fast food joints throughout the mall. At the insistence of my friends we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. Never again!

Something I learned after my visit was that the mall was built on the former site of Metropolitan Stadium, at one time the home of the Minnesota Twins baseball team and Vikings football team. A plaque in the amusement park commemorates the former location of home plate, and one seat from Met Stadium was placed in Mall of America at the exact location it occupied in the stadium, commemorating a 520-foot (160 m) home run hit by hall-of-famer Harmon Killebrew on June 3, 1967.

I am so glad I got to spend time there. I’ve heard about it for years, and since I was staying an hour’s drive away from it in Eau Claire, WI, I had to pay it a visit. Glad I did!