Well, we're six days into this thing and finally had our first 'blah' day. Nothing ever really seemed to click today.

The plan was to move at a leisurely pace and zip the 5 miles down 494 to the Mall Of America and spend the day checking things out and spending some time at Camp Snoopy.

We got there before noon and were immediately taken by the sheer size of the place. We walked around a bit and as we moved along the light bulbs slowly lit up as everyone realized this was just a big mall. Sure it's huge and people all across the country flock to it, but in the end it's just a friggin' mall. Your town has a mall. Maybe it has 50 stores. Maybe it has 100...150...200? So the Mall Of America has 520-some odd stores. In the end it's still just a mall. There was very little in there that I hadn't seen somewhere else somewhere along the way and the idea of compiling it all under one roof just wasn't that special. A mall is a mall is a mall regardless of how many spaces they have for rent.

It didn't take long for the reality to set it. Screw it, let's check out the extras.

We stopped by the Lego Imagination Center (fancy speak for "Lego Store") and again had that feeling of 'so what' - it was a Lego store with a bunch of over the top Lego creations (the kind you find anywhere Lego slaps their name) and a play area where kids could putzy around with Legos. It wasn't very long before we moved on.

We made our way to Underwater Adventures based on a show on the Discovery Channel that we'd seen a few months back. It looked pretty cool then and still looked pretty cool in person...until you saw the price tag. I'm normally one to tell people to suck it up. Pay to play. That sort of thing. But this was going to run the four of us right around 50 bucks to look at some fish. We hesitated and decided to look for some deals. We found a $10 coupon book at an info center and upon skimming it found coupons for both Underwater Adventures and Camp Snoopy. Those alone would be enough to outweigh the $10 cost so we bit.

With coupon in hand, we headed back to Underwater Adventures. Even with the 'buy one, get one' coupon it was still $40 to gain all day admission to the Aquarium. You enter and walk down a long corridor, turn a bend and see a glass window with a guy measuring the ph balance of the water or some crap like that. Continuing on you find yourself walking back and forth through a maze of lame exhibits. It started out with many turtle-based things. Most turtles in ridiculous situations - on the farm, with names painted on their backs, swimming meaninglessly. Then moved on to still scenes with stuffed (or fake, who cares) mammals. After a few of these you get to the 'walkthrough' aquarium. If you've ever been to Sea World's Terrors of the Deep in Orlando, you know the drill. Walk through a big tube that has a large aquarium built around it. We 'ooohed and ahhhed' along with the other tourists and after a few minutes found ourselves at the end. Another corridor with small aquariums with various sea life. There were Sea Horses, an Octopus, Jellyfish, Starfish and things of that nature. The standout was clearly the humiliated lobster. A sign noted that this guy was 17 pounds and estimated to be 29 years old. I took a look in the apartment sized fish tank and immediately struck a connection with the crustacean attraction. He was slouched in a corner the way anyone who's been humiliated and forced into public display would be. The damn thing was talking to me through telepathy!

This lobster has grown to enormous proportions and survived almost three decades on this planet, but rather than gallivanting in the kingly nature he should have been, he was in an undersized tank in a freakin' shopping mall with hordes of slack jawed yokels gawking mindlessly at his splendor. The damn lobster was humiliated and he was letting me know it.

Out of respect for my new friend, I quickly moved on promising him (telepathically, of course) that I'd surely return and set him free if the opportunity ever arose. If lobsters could smile, he most certainly would have. But not a wide toothed naive grin. Rather a small curl of the lip signifying satisfaction in the fact that after all these years one of these human creatures finally got it.

I feel you lobster. I get it.

After this hall of bemusement we found ourselves at a donut shaped tank full of Rays and Sharks. Standing in the center of the donut was an employee reminding visitors ad nauseam to pet with two fingers and only on the back. This was by far the most entertaining part of Underwater Adventures. If you tuned out the girl and thrust your fist into the water you could knock the rays unconscious. (Nah, just making sure you're still with me.)

Actually, if you gently put your hand into the water past the wrist, the rays would come up and brush along your hand the same a way a cat affectionately rubs your leg. It was pretty cool.

This ended the tour and from there you were thrust into a play area with a huge sandbox, a motion simulator, a few coin operated rides with a nautical theme and one of those little coin-op coaster rides that let you pick from a few of Cedar Point's coasters for a virtual ride.

We got out of there having felt dumber for spending the cash.

We headed up to Camp Snoopy's Stampede Steakhouse for the 'kids eat free' lunch. Service was great, food decent enough and lunch for 4 came in at under $20. Yipee!

We left there and scored some wristbands for Camp Snoopy with coupons from the book. Camp Snoopy is a victim of location.

First off let me say the park was nice and very unique and the staff overly friendly. It was the layout of the park that sucked. Way too cramped. Small walkways, high noise levels and cramped ride locations.

There's a joke about how stupid people tend to get at amusement parks that's only funny because it's true. I often felt the same rule applies to shoppers. People slow down, gawk at things, stop on a dime in the middle of a walkway for the dumbest reasons. There are similar frustrations in both experiences.

So what happens when you put an amusement park in the middle of an oversized shopping center?

The stupidity grows exponentially!

We really felt more annoyed than anything as we tried to navigate the crowded park full of brain-dead masses. We did a few rides including all three coasters.

Pepsi Ripsaw is a great coaster just for it's one of a kind, long, meandering ride. It covers most of the park and slows in the middle for a dark ride style trip through the log flume before returning home. Fun for all the reasons people generally dismiss a roller coaster as boring for. Go figure.

Timberland Twister was silly fun as all spinning coasters are. It was very fast and the last hill is a pleasant surprise of airtime. It was pretty amazing how they crammed it into the park.

Lil' Shaver is the dumbest kiddie coaster I've ever credit whored. It's a powered coaster that essentially runs in a horizontal oval. The kicker is that one ride consists of approximately 2000 laps around the oval.

The other fun killer was the overly cautious height restrictions. I'm sure there's some reasoning behind it, but it seems as if anyone under 42 inches can't ride a single thing in the park without a 'responsible rider' with them. For this reason alone, I rode more kiddie rides this afternoon that I probably have in my entire life. To make it worse, my son was getting pissed that he couldn't do anything alone.

We finally left the park (and the mall) between 6 and 7 beelined back to the hotel to calm down and relax. Upon arriving at the hotel we found the same girl working the front desk that had been doing the 3 to 11 shift since we checked in. The woman was always smiling and helpful and as an offer of appreciation my wife gave her the coupon book with just two coupons removed. She seemed genuine in her gratitude. First rule of life - hook up those who hook you up.

We ordered dinner and the kids put the Spongebob Movie in the laptop and it seemed like they had more fun eating and watching the movie then they had visiting the Lego Imagination Center, Underwater Adventures or Camp Snoopy. I know I did.

Camp Snoopy (and to a lesser degree the Mall Of America) is worth a stop just to see it. It's really cool how the park is crammed to the roof in the center of a mall, but at the same time that's exactly what makes it a hassle to enjoy.

We're hitting the road in the morning sometime and will be in Wisconsin Dells by the early afternoon...and if you ever do visit the Mall Of America, be sure to stop by Underwater Adventures and tell the lobster Gonch says hi.