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This is going to be one of the weakest trip reports ever. The main reason for our drive up to Minneapolis was because Janessa wanted to redecorate and Ikea was her primary target.

We got in late Friday night and used Priceline to score a room at the airport/mall Hilton for $50/night. This was our first time using Priceline and based on this experience we'll be using them again. The room was great.

Saturday morning we checked the weather report and determined that Valleyfair would be our first activity of the day. We only planned on spending an hour or two in the park and the rain cut that down to about 45 minutes. Upon arriving we quickly made our way back to Renegade and found a 1 train wait for the 3^rd row. I wasn't expecting much since our day rides last year were pretty tame. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Renegade is now broken in and was running like a champ. We decided to give it a try in the back row and waited two cycles for our ride. The drop actually scared Janessa a little and put a smile on my face throughout. What a difference a year makes. The night rides later this year are going to rock.

The clouds were getting darker and we felt a couple of raindrops fall so we made our way over to the Giant Swing for one last ride. It was again just a one cycle wait. Great ride, 'nough said.

That concludes our Valleyfair opening day report.

Our next stop was of course Ikea. After 3.5 hours and a bank account beat down we were done with our primary mission. We headed back for mission control and took a little break. Janessa pondered the few items that she didn't get at Ikea so we returned for round two, which was only a tenth as painful as round one.

Now it was time for the Mall. We got there around 6 or so and did a quick check of the lines. After scoring our tickets we put our name on the waiting list at Twin City Grill (go under the ferris wheel and turn right). The wait was close to an hour so we went back to the park and hopped in line for Avatar. The lines pretty slowly and we waited for close to 30 minutes. I wasn't expecting much from this ride but found it to be a lot of fun. It blows away the disco experience. SpongeBob was the only other ride that we planned on hitting and its line moved much more quickly. After just 5 minutes we were off. I had high hopes but once the jerkiness started at the bottom of the first drop my hopes had diminished. I guess that I'm just not a fan of the euro-fighter. The new set up at the Mall is impressive though. The color scheme and theming work really well.

I leave you with a dinning recommendation. The Twin City Grill was top notch and we'll be eating there again.