I haven’t traveled by plane since before the pandemic. The last time I was on a plane was fall of 2019, when my husband and I went to Universal Studios in Florida (see my blog post here). One of my husband’s close friends recently moved to Minnesota, and we decided to travel for a long weekend trip out there to visit. With my recent change in jobs earlier this year, this was the first “vacation” I’d taken since December of last year, so it was a much needed mental break!
DAY 1: MALL OF AMERICA
We flew in on a Friday afternoon, and arrived shortly after lunchtime. Since the airport was 4 minutes away from the Mall of America, we planned to eat lunch and spend our first day there hanging out at the mall.
It was almost 3 o’clock by the time we got to the mall, and my stomach was eating itself alive. I was so hungry I didn’t even notice which restaurant we went to 🤣. I saw food, and I was on a mission! Looking at their directory, I’m pretty sure it was Masu Sushi & Robata.
Our table was right under a vent, and I was freezing my butt off! A big bowl of ramen noodle soup REALLY hit the spot. I also tried quail egg shots for the first time – sounds weird, tastes delicious. After lunch, my husband and I stopped by Caribou Coffee across the way for some caffeine to fight the inevitable food coma. Please don’t hate me – I maybe kind of didn’t think there was anything special about the coffee!
There’s a reason they call this mall the mall OF AMERICA. This place is massive! It’s so massive that they have entire rides inside, an aquarium, and multiple locations for some stores. The cost for aquarium was astronomical, so unfortunately we passed on that activity. But we checked out a few stores, played a bunch of games at the arcade, and my husband and his friends went on one of the rollercoaster rides.
DAY 2: LAKE PARTY, PADDLEBOARDING, JET SKIING
My husband’s friend’s girlfriend’s family (try saying that 5 times fast) owns a house on a lake, which is where we spent all of our second day in Minnesota. They made us hot dogs on the grill, which let me tell you, was so much more delicious than my patented microwaved ones. They also had paddle boards, a canoe, and a jet ski.
If you couldn’t already tell from reading my blog, I’m not exactly a bold, adventurous type of gal. So paddle boarding, canoeing, and jet skiing – not really my thing. But just like how he convinced me to go on The Hulk rollercoaster at Universal Studios, he convinced me to get on the paddle board and jet ski with him. Oh the things you do for love. To paint you a picture, he went 60 mph on the jet ski alone. I hopped on behind him and panicked when we went over 25 mph.
DAY 3: TOURING THE FARM AND LOUNGING AT THE HOUSE
For our last day in Minnesota, we spent the first half of the day touring their family farm, and the second half of the day just lounging around the house and eating good food. We had chips and salsa, salad, grilled chicken wings, couscous, and homemade baked goods.
We had to wake up at 3 AM the next morning for our flight, so my husband and I called it a night around midnight to try and get at least 1 or 2 hours of sleep. The rest of the group planned to stay up all night watching movies. Funny thing is when I woke up at 3, every single one of them were sound asleep.
So that was the start to my September. Now I’m back at work, waiting for my next vacation in December. It’s going to be a BIG ONE, so stay tuned for that blog post! My next blog post is hopefully going to be a review of some Amazon purchases I made for this trip that I’d recommend. Until next time…
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Thanks for reading!