For the drive back to Kentucky we took the Northern route so that Brad could drive through North Dakota and mark it off his list (he’s almost been to every state in the U.S.). I told him if we were going to add that much time to our trip then I wanted to go to the Mall of America so that I could mark that one off my bucket list! Merinda had no say in anything but enjoyed having the back seat all to herself so that she could catch up on her sleep. After taking pictures out my car window of the interesting terrain in ND, and seeing the actual size of the propellers from the wind turbines that are increasingly dotting the U.S., we stayed overnight at a hotel in Fargo. In Fargo we ate at Mangos Mexican restaurant and then Brad and I went shopping at Sheels trying to find the perfect hiking shoes. We didn’t find shoes, but we did find a huge stuffed buffalo in the middle of the store. The next morning we drove to Minnesota, and somewhere outside of Minneapolis I finally found (I had been looking our entire trip) my perfect hiking shoes at a boogie shoe store called Schulers. The rest of the day we walked in or past every store in the Mall of America, about six miles in total. There was an entire amusement park, Lego Land, Crayola Land, M&M store (where they had every M&M flavor ever made, and you could even have your own initials or saying put on the candy), Gummy store (where everything was made out of gummy candy), a French Macaron store (where we just had to refuel), and every other store you could think of (or not think of). For dinner we wanted a hamburger and were going to eat at Wahlburgers, but Brad wanted something fast so we ate at Burger Burger. Because Brad didn’t quite have his share of shopping, we stopped at the Outlets on our way back to our hotel (true story). We crashed that night and the next morning we got up early and drove the 12 miles home (which ended being more like 14), but were blessed with the most beautiful sunset that lasted a long time, and seemed to say welcome back to Kentucky!