Nothing Ever Goes as Planned

Day 12:

This was the first time in some time that we had any time pressure. We had set times to both leave the lodge for the Mall of America (MOA) and to leave the mall for an evening engagement. I honestly don't miss the lack of scheduling.

The kids were very excited to get to the mall, so there were no issues with the usual suspects. The biggest wild card was T's sprained ankle and whether or not we'd have to wheel her around MOA in a shopping cart. She managed to limp quickly enough though, that she wasn't culled from the herd.

Looking back on the day, it's still not clear in my mind if the men or the women were more grounded about the whole MOA experience. I didn't think much of the girls' desire to shop at all the same shops that we had back home. But then again, the guys dropped a good chunk of change on a flight simulator and NASCAR simulator experience that were essentially big video games.

Going into the ACES flight simulator, I was really concerned about how my eight-year-old son K would do. He plays a game on the XBox called Heroes of the Pacific, and we would be flying the same selection of WWII planes. The trouble was that ACES had full stick/throttle/rudder controls and I wasn't sure how he would do without the familiar video game controller. He was certainly willing to give it a try.

The other three in the flight were my brother-in-laws, D & M, and myself. To make a long story short, K went from asking the tower for help with how to execute a turn to teaming up with M (a military historian AND a pilot in training) to put a 9-2 whuppin' on D and myself. As near as we can figure, he had four kills and M had five. No, we didn't go easy on him. And I'm actually very good at video games.

With the NASCAR sim, we brought in a few more of the group. G and her son K as well as D's sons E (the 14-year-old athlete) and J. Fresh off the ACES experience I wasn't expecting K to have a hard time, but he got pretty overwhelmed with scanning his ticket, starting his car, putting it in gear and finding the accelerator. It was pretty easy to forget that he was only eight when he was regularly showing up on my six and pouring lead through my cockpit. But this time, the new experience was too much and he ended up as my passenger for the second race. I'm happy to report that I regained some of my dignity here and got back into my video game stride. I'll leave the rest of the group to tell their own tales of woe and sorrow.

If you've ever done some kind of group activity like the two above, or if you're simply a guy, you'll agree that the debriefing over is as much fun as the actual event. We spent a lot of time poring over stat sheets, reviewing parts of the mission and quirks in the software, trying to get differing views of the same event, and talking about the most spectacular things you did after your plane lost it's wings and before you hit the ground.

After NASCAR, we had about an hour left to drop into Camp Snoopy, the amusement park at the center of the MOA. The rides were between carnival rides and Real Amusement Park (tm) rides, but hey, you're AT THE MALL and you get to ride a roller coaster. Whee!

To close the MOA section, I feel I need to comment on it's size. This thing is BIG. It's a big square built around Camp Snoopy (more on that later) with each side as long as a decent sized mall. Except that decent-sized malls are two stories tall and these are four. There are two Starbuck's and four Caribou Coffees in this place. In addition to the amusement park, it also has an aquarium. The Camp Snoopy area, a large terrarium is kept cool by huge vents stuck on the 24 tall structural supports for the ceiling.

Finally, a section on Karen, our GPS. I think she took revenge on us today for all those times we ignored her. Leaving the mall she gave us a series of five rapid-fire "in .3 miles, turn " directives that had us cutting people off to follow. .3 miles goes by very quickly when you're in rush hour traffic. A tip of my (virtual) hat to her, though. Her directions got us home twenty minutes (on top of two hours) faster than the route chosen by someone who grew up in the area.


Highlights:
1. Having it made clear who in my family gets to do a dogfight if a million bucks is riding on it
2. I had a coffee (that's espresso to you) after lunch. The local chain is Caribou Coffee, where you cannot get a single espresso but where the double costs $1.60.
3. Having dinner at a friend of my mother-in-law's. It was a beautiful place on a lake. There's that lake thing again - pretty common theme around here.

Quirks:
1. I've noticed a lot of VFW chapters here. I don't think I've even seen one in the Bay Area. Same, btw, goes for those self-service car washes.
2. The local police love their radar guns and they love laying in wait
3. They keep their cars longer around here. There's no lack of cars older than 10 years on the road.

New Things I've Learned:
1. Minnesota hasn't yet gotten to the point where they only do road work at night.
2. Don't upset your navigator. Even if she's the kind you leave in your glove box.