Minneapolis, or to be more precise St Paul, was a place I visited several times in my computer teaching days. One of the places that fascinated me as a small-town provincial Brit was the Mall of America. For those who don't know of it, it is (was?) I believe the second biggest shopping mall on the North American continent (the biggest is in Canada somewhere). It is huge, so big that there's a fairground, complete with roller-coaster. in the middle. You can (and I have) waste days just wandering round looking at stuff you don't need to buy and eating food you don't need to eat.

It is quite literally just outside KMSP airport. I believe there used to be regular Japanese tourist flights in specifically to visit the Mall.

In the sim, Minneapolis/St Paul is one of those photogrammetry areas, so looks pretty good from height but has lots of ugly artifacts if you get too close. Shame, I was hoping to be able to explore this close up.

A quick look at downtown Minneapolis

Looks like some building work going on here

 

and one shot over St Paul. This is the State Capitol building, which is where I was working when I was there. Shame this is not 3d modelled, as I was hoping to see the "sky corridors" as I think they were called again. These were enclosed walkways between buildings one floor up off the street level to allow you to walk around town in the winter without having to go outside. Which is a pretty good idea in this part of the world.

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by andy1252
edit text

Nice tour, enhanced by personal insights.

John

Great shots, Andy. I have been to that Mall too with my family, when we passed by in our RV. Very impressive and my kids loved it. And your pics look very rw to me 😉

45 minutes ago, John F said:

Nice tour, enhanced by personal insights.

John

+1
I too am a big fan of personal narratives with screen shots or videos.  Thank you for those.  What are your graphics settings and GPU card?

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by fppilot

2 hours ago, John F said:

Nice tour, enhanced by personal insights.

Thanks John. I'm always torn between not wanting to sound like any kind of "been there, seen this", and the urge to elaborate on a place if I know anything about it. Sometimes I'll just stay schtum, sometimes I'll waffle on for a bit <grin>

1 hour ago, bernd1151 said:

Great shots, Andy. I have been to that Mall too with my family, when we passed by in our RV. Very impressive and my kids loved it. And your pics look very rw to me 😉

Cheers Bernd. I had maybe six trips to St Paul in all, and I really got to like the area. Didn't get to see a great amount, on a working trip it was pretty much airport-hotel-office-hotel-airport but I always arrived on a Saturday to at least give me the Sunday to prepare and take a little trip out. And a lot of my classes were two weeks which meant I got a free weekend in the middle. (and that reminds me - I did that in Oklahoma City once, and the guy on the hotel desk was amazed to see me down there on a Saturday morning - he couldn't believe a visitor would actually stay in town over the weekend, most people could wait to get out of town. Mind you, I developed some sympathy for that point of view in the end)

1 hour ago, fppilot said:

+1
I too am a big fan of personal narratives with screen shots or videos.  Thank you for those.  What are your graphics settings and GPU card?

Hi FPP, glad you enjoyed them. I went berserk last year and bought a Titan RTX (24gb) and so my graphics are always max/ultra or whatever and at 4k.

Andy:

Your MSFS system, the way you've set it up, really seems to be effective...(indeed, very detailed and realistic graphics...on a consistent basis)...!!

Great set of the Twin Cities! I grew up there and have parked in that Macy's lot in your shot when I used to go to the mall. Pretty neat to see in a simulator.

Great shots!  The largest mall in North America you refer to is the West Edmonton Mall.  Now I’m interested to go see how it looks in MSFS!

Thanks for the share....Mall of America is certainly one of those sites to see, even if you don't care for hanging out at the mall.  There is something of amusement for just about anyone.

On 9/14/2020 at 11:32 AM, Pugilist2 said:

Great set of the Twin Cities! I grew up there and have parked in that Macy's lot in your shot when I used to go to the mall. Pretty neat to see in a simulator.

Used to live there as well.  It was great for the time now I'd rather be in a much warmer climate...  I do miss the mall, Valley Fair, The State Fair, The Renaissance Festival, and Pine Tree Apple Orchard.

Edited September 20, 20205 yr by Dillon

On 9/14/2020 at 5:33 AM, P_7878 said:

Andy:

Your MSFS system, the way you've set it up, really seems to be effective...(indeed, very detailed and realistic graphics...on a consistent basis)...!!

Thanks P, and yes, I'm pretty happy with it. I've no doubt I'll eventually become dissatisfied with it, that being the nature of things, but it should do me a few years!

On 9/14/2020 at 4:32 PM, Pugilist2 said:

Great set of the Twin Cities! I grew up there and have parked in that Macy's lot in your shot when I used to go to the mall. Pretty neat to see in a simulator.

Cheers! I always enjoyed my visits to the Twin Cities. Seemed like nice places, although I mostly saw St Paul.

On 9/19/2020 at 1:11 PM, regis9 said:

Great shots!  The largest mall in North America you refer to is the West Edmonton Mall.  Now I’m interested to go see how it looks in MSFS!

Thanks Dave, and now I see the name it does sound familiar. And I think I'll have to go see that as well.

22 hours ago, crosswind said:

Thanks for the share....Mall of America is certainly one of those sites to see, even if you don't care for hanging out at the mall.  There is something of amusement for just about anyone.

Hi SImeon, hanging out at the mall seemed quite exotic to me back then - didn't really have stuff like that over here. Well we did, but a very parochial, didn't-quite-work sort of equivalent. I seem to recall Roy Rogers beef rolls - very impressive, more meat in one of those than we'd expect to see for a whoile family meal back here!

51 minutes ago, Dillon said:

Used to live there as well.  It was great for the time now I'd rather be in a much warmer climate...  I do miss the mall, Valley Fair, The State Fair, The Renaissance Festival, and Pine Tree Apple Orchard.

Hi Dillon, I'm with you on the climate. I remember being somewhere in the US one January and seeing a newsie on TV throwing a cup of coffee in the air in Minneapolis and it freezing before it hit the ground. 60 below, I think they said.