TIME OUT: The enormous mall shopping experience, once again | Lifestyles

As I have previously stated in this weekly column, my best friend and spouse for 43-plus years, Lady Deborah, and I seldom repeat travel experiences. Recently we did, however, during a weeklong adventure to the far north, specifically visiting Minnesota and Wisconsin. We revisited gigantic Mall of America (MOA).

This 525-store iconic shopper’s paradise is located in Bloomington, just a short distance south from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP). Ms. Debbie and I had been to MOA a few decades earlier when it was a newer structure, but that was then, and this is now! To be transparent with you loyal readers of this weekly offering , I am NOT a big shopper. But, in the same breath, I have and will continue to tell you, I AM a dedicated people-watcher. Friends, there are few places on Planet Earth any better for people watching than MOA in Bloomington, MN! On both occasions, I took full advantage of people watching for several hours.

Because more time has accumulated on our bodies than our last visit many years ago, my bride and I each rented an electric cart from one of MOA’s 4 guest services locations. Those rentals were SO much fun for the 6-plus hours we were exploring this vast multistory structure. MOA was jammed with thousands of shoppers during both our recent visits. I am able to truthfully report, we did not have any electric cart accidents, nor did we strike any pedestrians. I must confess, however, we did have several close calls. We tried to not set any land-speed records via our electric-powered machines, but, occasionally, we would drive them a little faster than at a normal snail’s pace. In order to speed up, we had to wait for a break in the constant human foot traffic, traveling everywhere inside from Point A to Point B.

We did make a few store purchases, and placed our goods in the front and rear baskets the carts provided. However, after we had invested our hard-earned money into several purchases, one of us chose to stay with our carts for security purposes. Therefore, we would alternate shopping, while the other person monitored our carts.. We did not want to donate our stuff to someone else’s stuff, by not paying strict attention!

Shopping variety? ALMOST everything is available at MOA, kind friends. Let’s simply say, if it is not for sale on-site there, than you probably should not even think about looking for it elsewhere; the stuff isn’t very important!

The other statement I would make is how incredibly successful this particular mall operation appears to be in 2024, when most indoor shopping malls across our Great Country, have fallen on hard financial times. MOA, in our humble opinion, certainly appears financially alive and well, thank you very much.

So, if we lived closer to the Minnesota Twin Cities area, I am absolutely certain my lady and I would be regular visitors to MOA. It is, without question, an absolute travel destination like no other.

Robert Breedlove is an Oklahoma State University news-editorial journalism graduate. He lives and has lived in Stillwater, most of his life. He has been a contributing writer for various media outlets, including the Stillwater News Press, for years. His archived columns can be found at his website TimeoutSillwater.com. Comments are welcomed at [email protected].