The Mall of America opened in 1992. I don’t know when I first heard about it, but I was 12 years old in 1992 and I do clearly remember thinking that 1. a mall with a roller coaster was about the awesomest thing I had ever heard of, and 2. I *had* to get to Minneapolis to check that out for myself. Granted, when I was 12, hanging out in malls was, like, one of my main hobbies, and my preferences have changed a bit since then, but let me just tell you: the Mall of America did not disappoint.

First of all, it has this:

Nickelodeon Universe: the only Nickelodeon-themed amusement park located inside a shopping mall. It’s a nice little amusement park with some good roller coasters. Brian absolutely fell in love with the Avatar Airbender, which I would have to agree is the best ride there (and apparently it opened on my birthday this past year! Actually, it seems several of the best coasters didn’t exist until the park became Nickelodeon Universe earlier in 2008!). Look at him go:

Yay! By the way, the barefoot dude next to Brian was our BFF on that ride. He had been on it about 7,000 times. Midwestern people are friendly!

The Mall of America also has this:

Actually this picture represents only a small part of the extreme awesomeness that is the Lego Imagination Center. It’s SO FUN. There are tons of complex Lego models and sooo many fun Lego sets you can buy. There are also play tables with Legos galore and little racetracks where you can build Lego racecars and then race them. Here are the cars we built!

Brian’s streamlined car on the left features an actual control panel/dashboard and some kind of flag thingy on the back. My car on the right features plastic seaweed (I thought they were cacti but I got schooled by a Lego expert later in the day). Unsurprisingly, Brian’s car won our race, but we did buy a little (Lego-shaped… natch) tub of pick-your-own pieces, so I can work on my Legoaerodynamics and hold a rematch at home.

We also went to the aquarium!

They are all about sharks at the Mall of America. Not only do they have a bunch of sharks there — including a particularly vicious shark named Jesse who has been involved in multiple shark-eating-shark incidents at the aquarium — right now they also are featuring an art exhibit of 56 glass sharks. Each shark represents a state or U.S. territory (and, PS, they totally consider D.C. a territory for the purposes of this exhibit). Anyway, it’s pretty cool, even if it was made for the RNC convention. Here is D.C.’s shark:

You can learn more about the exhibit and find your favorite state’s shark here!

Did I mention that we also went to, um, the mall part? Well, we did. In fact, we made a lap around each and every retail level. We didn’t go into a lot of stores, but we did enjoy a few highlights:

* Rybicki Cheese, where we finally got to sample some Wisconsin cheese (among Green Bay Packers merchandise).

* Minnesot-ah! Actually, this wasn’t really a highlight except for the name. Minnesot-aaaah. But the MOA features several Minnesota-themed shops replete with loons, wild rice, blueberry muffin mix, and something called chokeberry syrup.

* Lake Wobegone, U.S.A. The nicest woman of all time assisted us in this Garrison Keillor–themed store (bonus points for public radio affiliation, obvs) and taught us all about the Minnesotan terms “uff da” (the “oy vey” of the Midwest, apparently) and “hot dish” (casserole).

So anyway, today was totally fun and we are very tired but ready to persevere tomorrow and head toward South Dakota! We’re still at our Super 8 in Bloomington tonight. Woo hoo!