A Little Piece of Shopper's Heaven

Current location: Sioux Falls, SD
Total miles traveled: 1,632 miles

Goodbye smelly Minnesota and hello perfect riding weather in South Dakota!

First let me begin by explaining that riding a bike through a place where factories are mass producing is much different than riding through on a car. Every faint hint of scent that you smell is full on scent city when you are on a motorcycle. At one point, I began to gag because of the overwhelming smell. Ricky said it smelled like dog food, but if we feed our dogs that stinky mess, we are cruel dog people.

Today, we visited the Mall of America and spent about 8 hours exploring. It was amazing. There were roller coasters, an aquarium, and putt putt all inside the mall. On top of that, there were also over 400 stores, including a Lego store where someone had made a 30 foot tall transformer, a helicopter, a horseman, woody, and a dragon in or on top of the store. It was awesome. I can't believe someone would have that much patience and determination to complete a project.

We went to the aquarium and stayed for about 2 hours. We saw a shark feeding, touched starfish, explored a tunnel with turtles, jellyfish, and freshwater fish. It was a great aquarium. Plus, the lady in front of us had an extra 1/2 off coupon, and she gave it to us!

We also visited the putt putt area and Ricky cheated the whole game. He kept doing tricky stuff and getting low pars. I decided to let him win. :) His score was 55 strokes and mine was 67. Clearly, I let him have the game. It isn't possible to actually be that bad, right?

Next we visited Curious George. Don't judge me. I have a free pass to enjoy children's activities for the rest of my life because I am a 2nd grade teacher. He must have gotten really curious though because he was gone in only minutes of arriving.

I was extremely proud of Ricky. We were at the mall for 8 hours and he not complained once! Something about throwing himself off the balcony at the Lego store? Other than that, he kept walking by my side and enjoyed the day of shopping and exploring the mall.

Another life goal was accomplished from me today. Do you remember when I told you about my Wisconsin goal? Totally happened today. While at the mall, they had a kiosk of Wisconsin cheese! Yes! I thought Wisconsin cheese was #fail but today I changed my opinion to #winning! Most of the cheeses were delicious. My favorite was the 3 year old cheddar cheese. It tasted like cheddar heaven in my mouth. Now, a bit of advice. If you ever visit Wisconsin, do NOT eat roasted salsa cheese. It tasted like baby vomit. Gross! Total nastiness. If you like the taste of baby vomit, go on and have at it, but otherwise, stay away!

Around 6:00, we left and headed for Sioux Falls, SD. It is much less smelly here, but the roads were awful traveling here. I got a full on cardio session from the bouncing between Sioux Falls and La Verne, MN. On top of that, the bugs were pure chaos. Because it was noghtimte during our travel, we hit so many nasty bugs in our way. Ricky's face looked like a hot sack of mess. He was covered in little wings, lightening bugs (or fireflies, as we were informed they are called), and gook. It paired nicely with the land of many stinky smells. By the time we arrived at the hotel, we smelled like moldy llama toes.

Tomorrow, we will depart for Mount Rushmore! I cannot wait to see those big headed mountain men!