Road Trip

Skyler has been trying to visit, but getting here was not working out as planned. Bumped off full flights, planes delayed, trains sold out...so on Monday night the kids and I decided to meet him in Minneapolis. We left the house at 8:00 PM and arrived around 1:30 AM. Sky arrived before us and checked into a hotel. We caught a couple hours of sleep and then got moving. We had a long drive home, but first, we wanted to check out the Mall of America. Here's a few mall facts:
*258 Statues of Liberty could lie inside the Mall
*If Mount Rushmore was divided into individual monuments, a president could reside in each of the Mall's four courts
*Mall of America is big enough to hold 32 Boeing 747s
*Seven Yankee Stadiums can fit inside Mall of America
*If a shopper spent 10 minutes browsing at every store, it would take them more than 86 hours to complete their visit to Mall of America
*Cost to build - $650 million
*Gross building area - 4.2 million square feet
*Number of stores - More than 520
*Sit-down restaurants - 20
*Fast food restaurants - 30
*Walking distance around one level - .57 miles
*Total store front footage - 4.3 miles
*Key attractions include Nickelodeon Universe®, Underwater Adventures® Aquarium, LEGO® Imagination Center, Dinosaur Walk Museum, A.C.E.S. Flight Simulation, NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Nordstrom and Sears.

All that in one building. We spent a little time and money at the Nickelodeon Universe (which had 4 roller coasters and many more rides) and hit about 5 stores. Took us 3.5 hours. Here are a few highlights.

Captain Jack Sparrow

Bumper Cars

The kids on one of the rides and Nickelodeon Universe inside the mall.

A Lego Dinosaur

Lego Land - A 3 story Lego store built out of Lego's. Wild.

A map of Nickelodeon Universe.