Minnesota

My trip ends in Minnesota. I had been watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show because I got the series for Christmas. I watched every episode but only the scenes where they are in the newsroom. That is probably a little over half of the series. The Ted Baxter character is one of the best ever. I didn't see a lot of the Rhoda character as she usually showed up in the Mary apartment scenes. Weirdly, the actress that played her, Valerie Harper, passed away the day I watched the last episode. Kind of freaky. It reminded me of another time something like that happened. Someone gave me a Perry Como CD. The day after that, he passed away. Again, freaky.

So back to Minnesota - The Mary Tyler Moore Show was set in Minneapolis. The interior shots were in LA, but the opening credits were filmed in Minnesota. It was fun tracking down those places. Doing that, you bump into others doing the same thing. There is a lake in a park that is a fun place to ben anyway, but also because of the credits. There is a restaurant in a mall where she is eating. That still looks exactly the same. The house that played her house still looks the same. And they have a statue at the spot where Mary throws her hat into the air. It's kind of like a treasure hunt finding those places.

We went to the Mall of America which in some ways no different than any other mall - just 10 times as big. It has three stories. You just walk in a big circle. There are carnival rides inside the circle. There are some stores that have two or three locations in the mall. It's pretty amazing. Saw a Twins / White Sox game that night. 

And that's the end of the trip. You wouldn't think a vacation in Iowa and Minnesota could be such fun.