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Monday, September 24, 2012

Minneapolis

The first two days in Minneapolis, Friday and Saturday, September 21 and 22. The first day spent with Jane taking photos of photos and photos of many pages of documents relating to her Rag-doll research--see other postings.

The second day Gary and myself we in our word 'surplus to requirements' at the research site so we headed in different directions. First we headed for the Mall Of America, we were told covered to 96.4 acres, with 520 shops, and was the largest mall in the US. On arriving we saw at least three elevated ramps descending from the motorway into on of the largest parking building I have seen. After parking the car we headed into the mall to be distracted by Nickelodeon Universe. A 4.5 acre indoor area of rides and activities. A huge open area about four stories high and possible the area of several rugby fields.


Within we found at least 6 different roller coaster rides all interleaved with each other. A big U shaped ride were people sat on a huge skate board rushed up one side of the U, stopped and then down the U and up the other side. While watching this a mobile phone came hurtling down, smashed on the floor and the battery went skidding past us.


Another ride was a large arm with several seats grouped at one end. The seats with controllable wings, and as the whole contraption spun around the rider could control the angle of their seat.





One of the roller-coasters started by pulling a single car, with a six people, vertically to the top of of the rails then dropping vertical, doing a loop-the-loop before continuing through many twists and turns.




There were several other roller-coasters......






a free fall tower......



that I manage to capture it in action.....



and many other devices that turned, twisted and generally were designed to upset ones equilibrium. Dare say, we did not go on any of the rides, photographing then was enough excitement.

Leaving this area we went up to the third floor for lunch. The Food Court over-looked the whole area.....



in the far distance (the middle of the picture) is a sort of an indiana Jones climbing adventure......






From this vantage point we could see a Lego shop and areas where children could make up models using the blocks. On top of the this were several very large models one of Ninja about 18 feet tall.....



all made from Lego......


After the mall we went looking for a small screw driver so Gary could fix Jane's camera and some more beer and wine. Both without success. However, we did visited several shopping areas and saw some more of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
- Posted Don

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