That's no mall, that's a space station!

Woke up not at all well rested, drove the remaining three hours or so to Minneapolis! We got here about one o clock or so and immediately got sucked into the Mall of America. Now, if you've never been there, I carefully selected this picture for you. Anyone who wanted to see a cute family picture or one of the more urban shots I took of downtown, sorry, blame it on those guys. See the theme park? That's what used to be known as Camp Snoopy (before Nickelodian came in and viciously jacked up the prices) it is in the middle of the mall. The mall itself wraps completely around the theme park on all four sides, making a square. It is four stories tall. The directory takes up three panels of a square column, just to list all the stores. It has at least seven coffee shops. Long story short, this sucker is huge. We have flown in before to go to the mall, but never quite got around to walking the entire thing. Today, after riding the Log Chute (from which this picture was taken) we did just that. It took us a little more than four hours and we only went into about eight shops. (Yeah, it's that big.) After our poor aching feet gave out on us we got back in the car and checked into our motel (yup, after last night, I'm so done camping.) then found some dinner at a great mediterranian place called Shiraz on Nicolette Ave. Best pitas ever, mmm! We drove around downtown after that, taking pictures and exploring neighborhoods. Minneapolis seems to be a very eco-friendly town. There's a lot of wind power machines here and a ton of people were riding bikes. Either that or they're just so relieved to not be in the crushing snows of a Northern winter. Whatever the reason, it was great to see so many people out and about, enjoying the beautiful city they live in.