The End of an Era



When I was in MN last month, we were in for a rude awakening at the Mall of America (MOA). As I have bragged many a time about (and simply because it is one of the only major things that I CAN brag about), MOA only isn't the biggest shopping mall in the country, but it is complete with a theme park furnished with roller coasters planted in the very center. In the three years that we've resided here, we have always known the theme park as Camp Snoopy. I suppose there was no question to naming the theme park "Camp Snoopy" for it has been a long-lasting tribute to Charles Shultz, the creator of the Snoopy comic strips. Seeing that he was born in St. Paul, Minnesotans are just as proud of him as they are of their native son Prince. In any case, somewhere within the past few months, Camp Snoopy has been getting a sort of facelift. Not that any rides were being taken out or construction been set to build something new; rather, (and as one helpful cashier simply put it), "some people just got greedy." While I do not know the details or really truly care about them, whatever went down resulted in the expulsion of anything Snoopy on the premises.

Everywhere you walked and looked, there were Snoopy, Woodstocks, and Charlie Browns and the gang posted and pasted on every ride and corner.














The theme park's new name is simply "The Park at Mall of America." How boring! They went from pizazz to blah. Because when I say that Snoopy has left the building, there is literally no trace of him and the gang anywhere. And if there is, they are quickly being put to rest. All the benches, the pictures, posters, t-shirts, souvenirs, store fronts, cardboard cutouts, giant size Snoopy drinking bowl/fountain, and most obviously, the immensely huge inflatable Snoopy...all gone.


All I can say is that I'm glad that we were able to experience Camp Snoopy as it was and that the cool people who have actually come through to MN to visit us (J, my sis & family, my auntie, and the kiddies) got to experience it as well. I would've loved to have had more souvenir pennies, but all of them crank-'em-yourself machines are gone, too. But hey, at least we got to say that yah, we were there when it was still Camp Snoopy...we got to see the Charlie Brown marching band complete with Charlie Brown fashion wear...we even got to see and take pictures with Snoopy himself! 'Tis the end of an era as we know it...

While sad to see the passing of the Snoopy era pass us by, we were pleasantly delighted to see an addition to a certain spot of the theme park. We had seen an episode of one those Travel channel shows where MOA was featured. 'Twas quite an interesting show because there were so many cool facts that wowed me. For example, if I am not mistaken (and please correct me if I am wrong), MOA is about the length of 7 or 8 football fields. If you took the five floors and placed them side by side, that would equal to about 56 or 57 football fields. We had learned that there was a wedding chapel, a university campus, a police station, and a full-sized aquarium on the premises as well! MOA also sits on the land where Metropolitan Stadium used to stand. And here, they actually put an honorary plate of where the original home plate would've been.





Although you can't read much of what is inscribed in the above picture, it basically shares about one of the most talked about baseball hits cranked out in Met Stadium. Harmon Killebrew hit one of the furthest home runs in the stadium and he also happened to be the 10th baseball player ever to hit 500 home runs! When they were building MOA, someone suggested that they honor Killebrew's famous hit by placing a red stadium chair up on the wall where the ball first landed. It would forever be a reminder of the history that took place all those years ago. We had heard this story, but we never knew WHERE that chair would be. All we knew is that it was a chair mounted up on a wall. For three years....THREE YEARS...we have searched the walls of the mall, hoping to catch some glimpse of it just to say that yes, we found it...but to no avail. UNTIL...until the above sign explained in detail the exact location!



As blurry as this shot is, the chair is located above the Paul Bunyan log chute ride...yes, as in the tall tale character Paul Bunyan and his famous blue ox. He's from Minnesota, too! I couldn't get a really good picture, but can I just say what a feeling it gave us to finally see it? After three years?! Without that sign, our eyes would never have been trained to go up that way! But hey, if you're ever in MOA's neck of the woods and happened to remember reading about the famous stadium chair mounted on the wall to commemorate some baseball player's homerun hit on MnM's blog, well, you can actually say that you know where it is now! (and it didn't take you three years to find it!)