Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 6 years and 9 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Today we kick off another family road trip over the July 4th holiday. The next seven days will see us through seven states and three college visits!

This afternoon we flew to Minneapolis on Delta. Somehow we ended up with two aisle seats and a middle in the exit row. I tried changing the one aisle to the window so we could all sit together but for some reason the system wanted to charge me $35 for that seat even though it was in the same row and I had already paid for the exit row seats! I tried last night online and at the airport but couldn’t get the seat changed (and I wasn’t going to let Delta gouge me more). By the time we got to the gate to talk to a rep, the seat was already assigned. Oh well. Other than that, the trip was uneventful (always good).

After getting our bags and picking up our one-way rental car for the week (a Nissan Rogue), we checked into our hotel for the evening across the street from the Mall of America (we were last here back in 2010 for our Mount Rushmore/St. Louis road trip). By now we were hungry for dinner so we walked over to the Mall. Unfortunately we forgot it was a Sunday evening (vacation time!) so most of the retail shops had closed at 7pm, but luckily the restaurants were still open (we ended up at CRAVE).

After dinner and a brief walk around the (now empty) mall, we drove out to get supplies for the road trip. We went to three places (Target, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart) and were unable to find a simple styrofoam cooler so we had to buy a smaller (and more expensive) soft-sided cooler to hold our snacks and drinks for the drip.

Tomorrow, the road trip begins!