Land of Lakes and Big Mall

On Tuesday 10/12, we headed to the land of lakes and big mall with Peppermint. Tom had to work so he couldn't come with us. The drive to Minneapolis was beautiful. When we arrived in MSP on Saturday night, it was already dark so we didn't get to see the scenery on the way to Eau Claire. But on this drive we got to enjoy the fall foliage scenery. It was neat seeing the Mississippi River as we crossed over into Minnesota from Wisconsin.

We made plans to drive over to my friend/coworker Terry's house in Bloomington. I've worked with Terry for eight years now. He used to work in our Minneapolis office, but we closed that office, so he works virtual from home now. Terry and I both report to the same manager. I've seen him several times at meetings in Dayton and San Diego, but I hadn't seen him the last 4-5 years.

Terry, his wife Joan, Todd, Peppermint, and I went to lunch at the Edina Grill. It was such a cute and hip place with cool decorations and great food!

Peppermint took this photo of us.


I got a salmon burger and it was SOOO good! I must have been nomming it so much that I forgot to take a photo. Peppermint got the Parmesan Crusted Grilled Cheese Sandwich and she said it was the best grilled cheese sandwich she's ever had! In fact, she was craving it this week and wondered if Tom would want to drive to Edina so she could have it again, ha ha! I wish I could go back and try it.

After lunch, Terry drove us around town and showed us the scenic lakes and trails. Then it was time for Todd, Peppermint, and I to check into our hotel rooms and then head to the Mall of America!

In my imagination, the Mall of America is just HUGE and you can't walk it or see everything in one day. I think my imagination was bigger than reality, but it was a big mall, and had anything you could want or imagine.

The indoor amusement park in the middle.


The two highlights of the Mall were H&M and Lush. At H&M, Peppermint and I found some cool clothes to try on. Including these fake fur hats.  Being big dorks, we took photos of each other on our phones, ha ha.



And no, it wasn't that cold in Minnesota yet.

Then we went to Lush. We had a lot of fun there getting hand/arm treatments from a super-enthusiastic green-haired employee. He was way fun!

He enticed us with cuticle creams.




Ocean salt scrubbers.


Buffy the buffing bar with moisturizers.




I don't think our arms have ever felt so soft!


Todd braved the treatment for soft arms too, ha ha!






After all the shopping fun, we had dinner at Rainforest Cafe. I fell down on the job again getting food photos. Peppermint and Todd had looked forward to the buffalo chicken salad there, but it wasn't on the menu anymore! Our server was nice enough to ask if they would still make it, and the answer was yes. So that's what Todd and Peppermint had, while I had Lava Nachos. I love nachos! I had seen Tom have seafood nachos at Manny's in Eau Claire on Monday night, and it looked so yummy. The Lava Nachos at Rainforest Cafe was too salty and probably not as good, but I wanted nachos, LOL.

After dinner we walked around to see the mall some more, but we were either in food coma or we were tired from all the mall walking. We finally lost steam and headed back to the hotel. I worked a little bit on my computer while we watched sports on TV. (I know, workin' on vacation, ur doin' it wrong!)

The next morning, we met up with Terry again for breakfast at IHOP before we headed back to Eau Claire. Peppermint had the best-lookin' nutella crepes I've ever seen! But yea, no photos again. Shame on me. I had a nutella crepe, along with some scrambled eggs and bacon. I used my knife and fork to cut the fat off my bacon and eat the meaty parts, and somehow Peppermint found that amusing. She said she had never seen anyone do that before! I just don't like eating the fatty parts of bacon, LOL. After breakfast, we drove back to Eau Claire. The rest of the day is a different blog post. More Wisconsin adventures to come!