July 7: Minneapolis

Yesterday, before Josh and I left Chicago, the four of us had breakfast together. John was raised in Colombia, and for breakfast, he made us a traditional Colombian dish called arepas. They're kind of like corn meal pancakes with cheese, and they were delicious.

Before I left, I got a picture of Grandmom and John.

They were good hosts, as usual. On the road, we drove through a lot of Wisconsin. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch, where we ate stuffed breads my grandmom made for us. They were very tasty.

We made it to Minneapolis, where we're staying with my aunt, Colleen. Josh and I went out for Thai last night with Colleen and her husband Tom. Dinner was very good. Today, my aunt drove us to Minnehaha Falls, which is a waterfall that's especially popular in the summer.

Colleen took a picture of me and Josh at the falls:

There's a restaurant right by the waterfall, and their sign had a Kendrick Lamar reference! It was a good sight to see.

The restaurant was crazy busy, so we went to Subway instead. After lunch, Colleen drove us to the Mall of America. Here's my aunt driving us:

The Mall of America is huge. It was good to go somewhere air conditioned for the day, since the temperature outside was in the 90s. We went to the Lego store first, and we both made our own little Lego people.

We found the Alpaca Connection store.

And of course I had to try on boots at the Western store.

We watched The Lone Ranger at the movie theater in the mall. I enjoyed the movie. I got this shot of the mall after walking out of the movie.

We ate dinner at a Mexican joint in the mall's food court. I was pleasantly surprised.

After that, we saw a standup comedy show, which was pretty good. The headliner was Ben Kronberg, and he was funny. Josh and I had a good time. We head out for for South Dakota tomorrow. I'll leave you with a pic I took off of a reflective pillar outside the mall when we were leaving.

Trip odometer: 1693.2 miles
Currently listening to: The Floorwalkers