Saturday 22 October 2011

11th July - Through Wisconsin to Canada


One last Lego picture :) 

Today we drove from Nicole’s house in Hopkins, Minneapolis into Wisconsin and then pretty well across this state. Stayed at Pembine, not far from the Wisconsin-Michigan border. Again a relatively obscure campground (about the only one in the area! It must not be a tourist area). And again we were worried about getting lost and not finding it, but my amazing navigation skills ruled once again. It was a really pretty spot in the trees, not far from a lake. If it weren’t for my sexy bootwear, we would’ve gone for a swim for sure. As it was, we cooked dinner late (it was 8pm already) and ate watching a chipmunk checking out Betsey. Sniffing, running closer then far away then closer. He also inspected the esky we’d left outside to air out. I giggled as I thought of the poor thing jumping on the side and accidentally tipping it over and it shutting on him. Chippy trap! Didn’t happen though and I think he would be too light to tip it. So cute though. I think he went under Betsey too – probably smelled the other chippies’ smell on her. An early night, ready for another big day of driving tomorrow. 
First ever waffle fries! At MOA.

10th July - MOA III


Crazy roller coaster land! 

Finally the shopping novelty is starting to wear off! Thank goodness, says Will. We just did the rounds of the last few shops on the third and fourth floor, including Best Buy – where we found out we’d missed out on some cool deal in Vegas. Oh well. We don’t really need a huge zoom lens for $300, however tempting it is! Will also got his hair cut and after a few last minute clothes purchases, we hung out in the food court and called it a day. Well a three-day binge-shopping day. 

That afternoon we met up with my old housemate, Meaghan, who is from Minneapolis but studied in Launceston for a few years. We used to live together in that cute apartment on Balfour Street. It was a trip down memory lane as we reminisced about Tassie and people we knew then. Also had a good catch up on recent events, such as us travelling and her studying and working. So good to see her, though apparently it was disappointing that we had to leave the next day as we hadn’t seen any of the 10,000 lakes that Minnesota boasts! 
 
After that we went and had dinner with a girl Will met in London, Nicole. We went for dinner at a cool place on a lake that had a huge outdoor area. Luckily our waitress suggested we move as it looked like rain. Huge salads, but absolutely delicious. I think Will was the only one to finish his! IT was good to be eating some veg! It did start to rain – and then it was full-on wind and thunder and lightning. The rain was really heavy! We stayed in Nicole’s driveway in Betsey J. It was fun to catch up with her too, but like with Meaghan, it was a shame that we had to keep moving. Darn visa chaos. 

9th July - MOA II


Lego bricks anyone?

More shopping! And because we didn’t finish the first floor yesterday, we finished it today! And did about half of the second floor! So so fun – lots of new pretty things! Today included going to classic American shops like Abercrombie and Fitch (amazing sale resulted in Will having amazing t-shirts and me finding the cutest summer dress! Score!). We also went to American Eagle (Will bought jeans from here when he was over here 8 years ago and they are just getting to the stage of dying, though every time he tries to throw them out I remind him that people pay good money for jeans with trendy holes in the knees!) – and I bought denim shorts for $25 – can give my Just Jeans ones a rest as they are seriously faded and stretched. Also a visit to Victoria’s Secret for some essential supplies – I didn’t see any pictures of Miranda Kerr, so that was a bit disappointing! So more shopping goodies and no real signs of slowing down!


8th July - Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota


Mega Lego sculpture!

Today we left relatively early (well for people on holiday – 10.30am) and headed to MOA! How exciting! We found a good parking spot right near Macy’s. And in we went! Through Macy’s which is just a regular department store, much like Myer or David Jones. Then suddenly we were in the mall and seeing all of its mall goodness. Brought back some fond memories of the many hours I spent at Chadstone, Melbourne. Sigh. I am definitely a binge shopaholic.

We walked to the centre of the mall and saw the Legoland store! It was awesome! And there were huge sculptures made out of Lego – a dragon, a spaceman, some pirates. It was amazing and I was jealous of whoever was lucky enough to build these things! We went into the Lego store and marvelled at all the different things. All Lego of course. Childhood memories came flooding back of Eric and I building enormous Lego castles and towers that were two metres tall. Made me want to go home and play with all my Lego! Instead I was happy to quickly whip up a house at the play stations they had set up there. I was pretty impressed with my effort – colour coordinated, tiled and only took about 3 minutes. I felt right at home with the all the kids there haha. 

We wandered out of Lego heaven and into rollercoaster central! Yup, inside the actual mall is a series of crazy little rollercoasters. It’s no Movie World, but it’s something Chadstone should think about! Something for Dad and the kids to do while Mom shops up a storm. There was one that zipped around and spun at the same time, one that went straight up, rested on the crest and raced straight down (made my stomach churn just looking at it). There were the swinging rides and the ones that tipped everyone upside down. It was pretty crazy having this in a mall! Will lost $5 trying to win me a monkey at the side shows. Rigged! 
Lego Woody.
Then it was time to shop. Lulu Lemon was first on the list, a Canadian work-out gear brand that roommate Heather used to wear a lot of. Awesome! A pair of tights, shorts and a hoodie later and the shopping had begun!

We went to many many shops that day and tried our best to get around the first floor of the mall. There are three floors, but the main shops are on the first and second. I did my best to limp around shops and then rip off the boot when I was trying things on – shorts were particular difficult! Will had to make a trip to Betsey just before lunch to unload the shopping I’d done! I even managed to buy two pairs of shoes – I did think about this yesterday. I tried on the left shoe and hopped around on it and if it felt comfortable, I bought them. Bargain shoes were the Nike runners that have just come out at home and are super light – at home they are $180 and I bought them for $80. Awesome.

It was a lovely day of shopping and spending money. It has been a while since I went shopping so it was great to get some new clothes!

My little Lego house!
We returned to the RV park at about 5pm, tired but with one very happy injured Jen! Dinner and then an early night, ready for the next day of shopping! We did talk to the neighbours for a bit too. They are from half an hour away (!!) and are camping for the weekend. They were trying to fit a huge fifth-wheeler in a space that may have been a little too small, so Will offered to swap. They declined and somehow managed to park their SUV in front of the fifth-wheeler. Probably sideways. They had three little kids and together they lit a huge fire and made s’mores. Then they left this fire burning and went to bed at like 9pm. I wanted to go out and ‘steal’ their fire (well sit around it anyway), but I couldn’t be bothered. Relatively early night ready for another epic day!