Thursday – Mall of America

On Thursday, September 20th we planned to drive about a half hour south of the St. Anthony Falls, which were not far from where we were staying, to visit Mall of America in the city of Bloomington, Minnesota. Although none in our group of six are real shoppers, the mall held an interest for its architecture, huge size, and contents other than stores such as amusement rides, an aquarium, an Escape Room, miniature golf, etc.  By the locals, Mall of America is referred to as MOA and this is its logo.

On our way to MOA we would, out of idle curiosity, drive by the Purple Rain House of Michael Jackson song and film fame.

Not a Michael Jackson fan myself, I had to look up most of the following information about the landmark Purple Rain House. Most of our group were similarly ignorant. We drove up and down the block many times, looking for a PURPLE house at 3420 Snelling Avenue in Minneapolis. After Frank Googled a picture on his cell phone, we finally satisfied ourselves that this non-descript, somewhat run-down cream and brown home was indeed the house in the Michael Jackson American rock musical movie Purple Rain. 

In 2016, NPG Music Publishing — Prince’s company — paid $117,000, just a little over the asking price of $110,000 for the two-story, three-bedroom house built in 1913. Per a Star Tribune article

Prince never actually lived at the Snelling Avenue house. The filmmakers of “Purple Rain” paid the then-owners to use it for the exterior shots of the home where Prince’s character, The Kid, lived a turbulent life with his parents in the 1984 film. Most prominently, one scene shows Prince’s father being taken away in an ambulance after he shot himself. Interior scenes were filmed elsewhere.

I found the lyrics to the song Purple Rain to be even less illuminating. For those interested, here they are and this is the link to the official video on YouTube. Perhaps the words will speak to someone.

I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you
Laughing in the purple rain

Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
Bathing in the purple rain

I never wanted to be your weekend lover
I only wanted to be some kind of friend
Baby, I could never steal you from another
It's such a shame our friendship had to end

Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
Underneath the purple rain

Honey, I know, I know
I know times are changing
It's time we all reach out
For something new, that means you too

You say you want a leader
But you can't seem to make up your mind
I think you better close it
And let me guide you to the purple rain

Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
If you know what I'm singing about up here
C'mon, raise your hand

Purple rain, purple rain
I only want to see you
Only want to see you
In the purple rain

Per Wikipedia, Prince explained the meaning of "Purple Rain" as follows: 

When there's blood in the sky – red and blue = purple... purple rain pertains to the end of the world and being with the one you love and letting your faith/god guide you through the purple rain.

There! That is a lot of information about purple rain, but I felt I had to devote as much time reading about it as we spent driving back and forth trying to find that house! But all was in the fun of experiencing local flavor. I place this adventure in the same "why not now" category as dipping our hands in the Mississippi and finding the Mary Tyler Moore Statue.

I am over midway through this series of post about our Minneapolis trip and I have yet to give homage to Sue and Margaret who unselfishly, daily, deftly, and gracefully – well maybe not gracefully – folded and unfolded themselves into the third row seat of our rental car. I was recently coming off some physical therapy sessions for a malfunctioning knee and so they kindly and stubbornly insisted I not take a turn maneuvering about to climb in the back. To allow access to the third row, the second row seat needed to be slid away from the third row and also its back hinged toward the first row. Finding the slide control was a challenge but once we figured it out that part was golden. The spring loaded hinge-flip action was a skilled endeavor learned only through experience. The first time I bent over to release it, I had my head between it and the back of the front passenger seat. I neglected, or was too slow, to get out of the way and whacked myself smack dab on the side of my head, sandwiching my skull between the flipped forward second row seat and the back of the first row seat. I only did it once more before I caught the hang of the release and retreat maneuver. Sue and Margaret did allow me to take photos of them emerging. They adamantly refused for me to take any pictures of their backsides as they were entering.

When we arrived at Mall of America, parking no problem whatsoever. The multi-leveled garage was huge and we manage to find a space where we could fully open the doors for the requisite disembarking maneuvers, now honed to a precision process by now. Fortunately there was also an abundance of signage so we could remember where we'd left the car and what entrance we'd used to go into the mall. Coincidentally, the graphic sign to jog our memory was that of California, embellished with pink rhinestone sunglasses. Hmm... is that what Minnesotans have as their clichéd view of Californians?

Our entrance into Mall of America placed us right at the amusement area. It was impressive to see such extensive rides and attractions within a mall, not merely adjacent to it. Guys in the back row: Joe, Frank, John. Girls in the front row: Margaret, Sue.

Our first planned activity at Mall of America was The Escape Game, an amusement where you pay to be locked in a room for an hour and try to figure your way our using a set of clues. We had tried one of these in Colorado City with the theme of waking up in a hotel room after a raucous night and having to find our way out. (See my post for August 26, 2015. We had came close there but ultimately failed.) We would try our skills and wits again with another game in Minneapolis, but first we had to get there. Mall of America has electronic touch activated interactive directories throughout. We consulted one to help us find The Escape Game. We were on Level 2 and it was on Level 3. A route was mapped out for us and our travel time was reported to be 6 minutes, 8 minutes if we were in a wheel chair or pushing a stroller.

We checked in again at another screen when we got closer to be sure we were on the right  path. The genie within the directory had to think. For some odd reason this tickled the six nerds in us.

A few stores down from the Escape Room was Crayola Experience. As I peeked in, I saw it was crowded with clients under about 3 feet. We did not pay to go all the way in for the experience but the clerk at the front desk let me partially in for free to take a photo of these cheery little guys on the entry mural. I wonder if Miss Pinky and Mr. Orangaroo (my names for them) were predicting how we would do in figuring our way out of the locked room.

The theme for the game in Minneapolis was The Heist. Per the website for the Minneapolis escape game

A famous piece of artwork has gone missing and it is up to your covert team to recover the invaluable masterpiece. If you succeed in your mission you will become national heroes! If you fail, you will be treated as a common criminal by the authorities.

There is also a video at the website for the Minneapolis escape game but I did some screen grabs in the following composite photo to give the flavor of the game. Pay no attention to the timer in the corner. It is to lend a sense of urgency but I am not giving away any clues or any sequence. Neither does the video. There were locks to open once you figured out the combination, puzzles to solve once you found some clues, places to look for hints such as in books, on shelves, on paintings, with statues. There was also a video screen where "Big Brother" was watching and would type out additional information for the asking, some with and some without a time penalty. Also we were proffered the occasional comment that perhaps something "might be backwards" or that maybe we  should "look again" where we had been before. We were successful in that we made it out in time but barely under an hour, at 59 minutes and 20 seconds, and with a lot of hints. I suspect the owners of the game help you to be successful so you are willing to try again. We had fun. 

After coming home from Minneapolis I read a story in the October 2018 issue of my AARP Bulletin (AARP = American Association of Retired Persons, for you young folk who might be reading this) about an incident in an escape room in in Vancouver, Washington. A burglar broke in and had to call the police – four times – to help him out. As an aside, the article stated that the number of escape rooms in the United States has grown about a hundredfold since 2013. We even have one in our home town of Livermore. We failed miserably at it with another couple last week. It had a pirate theme and was pretty dark so we claimed old eyes gave us a handicap. But we had fun and signed up to do it again with a Sherlock Holmes theme.

After all that hard work solving the Heist, we had worked up an appetite and were ready for lunch. Where to eat? We walked by this storefront that made me smile with its name. But cocktails were not on our agenda.

There was a Rainforest Cafe at MOA. Even though they are a chain they are not in all states. Frank and I have been to a Rainforest Cafe several times in California but not everybody in our group had. 

John and Sue had never been in in that environment surrounded by all the animatronic jungle creatures, so we urged them to try it out. Food portions were large and the roaring lion, screeching monkeys, and chest-pounding gorilla were a bit noisy, but the company was good and – wonder of wonders – we had no wait. It was too dark for a group photo so you just have to believe me; we were indeed at the Rainforest Cafe in Minneapolis.

We decided to do two rides at the mall before splitting up to explore areas/stores of our specific interests. Joe and Sue rode the SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge the tallest roller coaster in the park at 74.5 feet. Each car hold eight riders, four in a front row and four in a back row. It features a beyond vertical (97 degrees) drop, a vertical loop, a cutback, and a heartline roll. A heartline roll, also known as a barrel roll, is a roller coaster inversion in which the rider performs a 360-degree roll and the point of rotation is near the middle of the rider's body.

I made a 31 second movie of Joe and Sue's ride and inserted it here. At 19 seconds, the view is unobstructed by superstructure, the eight person car is oriented correctly, and the speed is low enough that the car is not blurred, so that if you have a very good imagination you can make out the top of Joe and Sue's heads in the two center seats of the first row.

Frank and I elected to ride the Log Chute (formerly called Paul Bunyan's Log Chute) which is the oldest ride in the mall and the only one with a Minnesota theme. Only he and I were willing to risk getting wet.

Here is our before picture. We look pretty happy and not at all apprehensive.

Here is our during picture. We are not quite as relaxed.

Here is our after picture.We are not too drenched. Frank either got wetter than me or I happened to pick a tie-dyed top that camouflaged the water spots.

I found some interesting facts about the Mall of America at its Wikipedia entry.

Despite Minnesota's cold winters, only the mall's entrances and some below ground areas are heated. Heat is allowed in through skylights above the central amusement park area. The majority of the heat is produced by lighting fixtures, other electric devices, and people in the mall. In fact, even during the winter, air conditioning systems may still be in use during peak hours to ensure a comfortable shopping environment. Although the common areas are unheated, the individual stores do have heating systems.

Since the MOA is built on the former site of the Metropolitan Stadium, nostalgically called "the Old Met", where the Twins and Vikings played from 1961 to 1981, there are a few commemorative markers. We saw a plaque embedded in the floor marking the exact spot of home plate at Metropolitan Stadium. We happened upon this at the base of SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge when Joe and Sue rode.

Other pieces of nostalgia from the Metropolitan Stadium include a stadium seat, painted red and bolted to a wall, marking the exact height and position at which a ball from the longest home run hit at Metropolitan Stadium landed. Frank noticed this seat. There is also a plaque embedded in the floor marking the spot of the 50 yard line at Metropolitan Stadium. That escaped our notice.

On a more somber note there is a memorial, for those who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 during the September 11, 2001 attacks. The connection here is that Tom Burnett, one of the four heroic passengers who forced the plane to crash short of the White House or Capitol, was born and raised in Bloomington, the city of the MOA. A transcript of his final cell phone conversation with his wife can be found at the site for the Tom Burnett Foundation. He had a medical device company in my neighboring town of Pleasanton. It truly is a small world.

We set off on our individual paths of exploration and would meet back up in about an hour and a half. I wanted to just take in the architecture of the mall and make note of random sights along the way. We learned quite quickly that a mall, is a mall, is a mall, and many of the chain stores represented there are not very different from our local mall, which I rarely frequent. There is of course the ubiquitous Claire's. I had gotten my ears pierced over four decades ago in college but once busy raising kids I ignored them and they closed up. I went to a local Claire's when our daughter Robin was getting married to get them re-pierced. That was over seven years ago and I fear they have probably closed again. I did not go in and have them pierced a third time. Earrings are overrated anyway.

Our son Dan loves to eat raw cookie dough. Gasp! Horrors! I know... a real no-no. He will break off a row from the package and enjoy it just like that.

I thought of him when we passed this store at the MOA. The shop claims they have removed the risk factors, such as raw eggs.

Does this tempt you? Personally, I'd rather it were ice cream in those tubs.

Frank and I considered playing a round of miniature golf.

The golf course did have a train as part of it as seen in the background, so it had to be worth it, right?

It would have taken about 45 minutes, so we skipped it. I claimed that seeing the mall architecture would be more enlightening. Per Wikipedia I later learned that

The mall is organized into four different zones, each of those zones had its own decorative style until a series of renovations from 2010 to 2015 led to a unified and more luxurious style...

To me "unified and more luxurious" equaled "boring and uninspiring". We should have golfed, instead. Nevertheless, it was a fun, eclectic day. We all met up at our appointed time and place. Margaret and Sue "Tetris'd" their way back into the car. We spent the remainder of the evening relaxing at our home base.