Road Trip - day 4 - Monday

The room we stayed in at the Best Western in Clear Lake, had lots of
temperature controls. We were able to turn the fan on but still turn the
heat off (we like it cool at night, and the fan helps kill noise). Slept
soundly but we both woke at 6 and only slept fitfully until 8. A
continental breakfast and we were off to Minneopolis.
Our fears of heavy traffic as we approached the Mall of America were
unfounded, in fact the mall wasn't crowded at all. The mall is a large
box, four main corridors surround the amusement park in the center.
3-1/4 floors, and I'm told that if you walk the whole mall, its over
four miles. I must admit, my back was sending me some strong signals!
500 and some stores and reastaurants, not to mention an underground
aquarium (with a conveniently located Spongebob store nearby). You'd
think with that many stores, there'd be at least one funnybook shop! I
did pick up two books to add to my collection, Laura Joh Rowlands 7th
volume in her fuedal Japan mystery books, and the third volume of
Bretheran of the Coast, by James L. Nelson, about pre-revolutionary war
era pirates. The mall also had an Apple store where I picked up an
iTalk, which is an adapter that turns my iPod into a voice recorder. Deb
got a good look at the new iLife and I think she really liked the new
iPhoto and it's photo album options. We decided it could wait until we
got home as we didn't bring the laptop along anyway, nor do we have
time!
The third floor is packed with fast food places and restaurants. We
chose one of the 3 Japanese fast food places and sat on a deck
overlooking Camp Snoopy, the amusement park.
Deb picked up a Mall of America shirt, and we left about 4:30. Deb was
concerned about the rush hour traffic, but believe me, it doesn't hold a
candle to New Jersey traffic.
At this point we decided to take one of the smaller routes so we could
see some of the scenery and hopefully some of those 10,000 lakes
Minnesota boasts about! We didn't countt, but we figure we saw 30 to 40
lakes on the ride into South Dakota.
For some reason Pizza Hut appealed to both of us and that's where we had
our anniversary dinner! 25 years today! (I don't know how she did it!
Put up with ME for that long...)
When we got to South Dakota we had planned to call it quits in Souix
City, a few mile over the border, but Deb's eyes lit up as we entered SD
and saw the 75 mph signs. She suggested, since we were moving along so
well, with so little traffic, that we keep going to the next big town
about 50 miles away, Mitchell. None of the hotels were crowded and the
Best Western was the furthest from the highway (less noise one hopes)
and boasted a really good price for the night, so they won our business!
Lucky them!

Bruce and Deb
http://rosey462.blogspot.com/
notsosilentbruce on AOL IM