Can't resist no tax on clothes!

Can't resist no tax on clothes! Cass Lake, MN

Cass Lake, MN

After a good breakfast at our hotel, we walked right across the street to the Mall of America. Our goal was to get a little shopping done while in Minnesota since there is no tax on clothing here. It's like a 7% off sale on top of any other great sales we can find! So we arrived at the mall at about 10:30 a.m., and finally left at about 5:30 p.m. The girls got to visit the American Girl store and the Lego store, and Leah rode on a couple of rides in the amusement park. We found a few good deals on clothes, including some dresses for the girls to wear at Stacey's wedding in August, a rain/wind jacket for Chloe, and hiking shoes for both girls from the Columbia store for our trip out west next week.

So, after getting good and tired, we hit the road for the last 4-hour leg of our trip. We stopped for groceries in Brainerd, and finally reached our destination, Birch Villa Resort, at 10:15. Our cabin had been hit by a falling tree during a huge windstorm at the beginning of the week so we were anxious to see how things looked. Basically there was a "band-aid" on the roof where a little damage had occurred. We were thrilled to see some nice changes to our cottage on the inside, though. We have new carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and new queen-size beds where we used to have full-size. Some of the clutter in the cabin was also removed.

We unpacked the car in record time, about 10 minutes, as the mosquitoes were swarming around everywhere. After settling in and talking to sister Beth for a bit, we hit the hay.