Ruins, a Waterfall and the MOA

Created by Lester Martin
Last updated: Jul 19, 2017

I am in Minneapolis / St Paul this week for my first ever trip to Minnesota which lets me add a few new pins to my Oh, The Places I've Been! map.  The trip started a bit bumpy with sitting on the plane for three hours before finally taking off.  As a colleague from Hortonworks, Will Daily, and my brother, Eric, (a commercial pilot) both tell me, it is more important that we safely take off and land and I have to say thanks to the crew for this one.  This left me with a very few precious hours of sleep before my class began on Monday, so when the students asked if we could hold class from 7am-1pm without taking a lunch break so they could go to their IT department's annual family picnic, I realized that would give me a great opportunity to check out the Minneapolis area.

First up, I headed over to the Mill Ruins Park in downtown along the Mighty Mississippi River.

 

 

 

A pretty unusual city park, but one I'm glad I took the time to check out.  Next up, my love of Waterfalls required me to head over to see Minnehaha Falls.  I got a bit disoriented and ended up hiking a lot more than I had planned and by the end of the visit to this park it was far to say that my work clothes were not dry.  I was thrilled to find the stream that pointed me in the right way and got to cross this cool little bridge.

I was so glad to finally make it to the base of this 53 foot plunge.

 

 

What a nice looking waterfall and a true Minneapolis gem.

How to top all of this fun?  The MALL OF AMERICA (MOA), of course!  The amusement park in the middle of this thing was so much more than I was expecting.  Multiple roller coasters and other "vomit comets". 

 

 

I really enjoyed watching folks have such a good time on these rides, but being tired I decided I'd stroll into the "regular" mall parts of the MOA and stumbled (like I could miss this!) on these GIGANTIC Lego creations.

I wandered around for about an hour and I barely scratched the surface of the 500+ stores in this monstrosity.  Seriously, it is as big as you have heard it is.  In one word; "insane"!!  (smile)  I was so tired I even skipped the Sea Life aquarium.  The MOA clearly is the epitome of American commercialism.  Again, you need to see this thing!!