Shopping anyone?

  Last night we made it into Rochester, Minnesota. We couldn't quite make it to Bloomington. Although, we made it there today. Population of a little more then 85,000 people, you need a large place to hold them all. Mall of America is definitely one of those places.

It has so many stores. Like I told my sister-in-law today, just when you think you are lost or went the wrong way, the store you're looking for appears. All the stores seem like superstores. This could be partly due from being from a relatively small area. It had stores I hadn't seen anywhere before, like a Nike store or a Peeps store, filled with just peeps stuff. (That's Luke in the background seeing what he can get us to buy him.) In the epi-center of the mall is Nickeloden Universe. Anything you have seen on Nick is there is some way, shape or form. They have indoor roller coasters, a HUGE climbing

apparatus. A mini-golf course, a movie theatre and tens of other rides, attractions and what not. I got myself a mini Jimmy Neutron Plush doll. Luke took pictures with Blue from Blues Clues and The Back Yardigans. The older boys went on as many rides as they could. We did take a break and ate at Bubba Gumps. All kinds of Forrest Gump references. Can you guess what Tim got?

  We then took off towards South Dakota and we made it. We are in Sioux Falls, SD while I write this. We are headed towards Mount Rushmore. On the way through Western Minnesota I didn't realize how much farm country there was. They have an enormous amount of Wind generated power as well. As we drove through, I wondered why in certain parts the windmills weren't spinning? Not enough wind? Do they cost more to operate then what they generate at the time? Are they just down for maintenance? And how about all that corn? That's an awful lot of planting. In case you were curious, Iowa's corn is definitely taller then Minnesota's.