The mall is built on the former site of the Metropolitan Stadium, where Minneapolis' professional baseball and football teams, the Twins and the Vikings, once played. The teams moved to the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis in the 1980s, leaving Bloomington with 78 acres of real estate with a great location. It was less than two miles from the airport, and at the intersection of four major highways. The mall was built and is owned by the Triple Five Group, Ghemezian brothers of Canada, who also built the West Edmonton Mall. In 1992 the doors opened with 330 stores and 10,000 employees.

It's designed in a square, with four anchor stores in each corner: Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Nordstrom and Sears. The amusement park is in the middle, with three levels of retail shops on the avenues connecting the anchor stores.

There's clothing for every price range: from the $650 Burberry trench coat at Bloomingdale's to $4 shirts at Petter's, a discount store that boasts, "Twice the fun, half the price." In between, there are lots of recognizable names like Charlotte Russe, Rainbow, Wet Seal, Delia's, Old Navy, Deb, Aldo, Lane Bryant, Urban Outfitters, H & M Hollister's, Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Sports Authority, and Nordstrom Rack.

To sweeten the deal, there's no sales tax on clothing or shoes in Minnesota.

While my daughter hit Delia's and a prom-dress store called Glitz, I tried on a few things at Torrid. As the name implies, there are no frumpy mu-muus at this plus-size women's shop. It was hard to find much that wasn't sheer, skimpy or low cut.

At the Nordstrom Rack, we met the most diplomatic sales clerk ever. As people came out of the dressing room to return clothes, she smiled reassuringly and said, "Oh, they don't fit? Well, those clothes don't deserve you then."

We saw footwear for every occasion at some of the 30-plus shoe stores: Baker's, Naturalizer, Easy Spirit, Aldo, D.S.W. Shoe Warehouse, Footaction, and others. We strolled past the Franklin Covey store next door to the Lindt Swiss chocolate shop. We tried on fancy make-up at Sephora, and taste-tested artichoke dip at the Le Gourmet Chef cookware store. Since Nordic Ware is a Minnesota company, it was no surprise to find that the store had a huge selection of bundt pans, from mini to giant sizes, and in shapes from sand castles to roses.

A potpourri of ethereal scents lured us into Basin, a store filled with colorful bars of soap in with a chunky, hand-made look. Priced at $3.95-$5.95 per bar, they seemed more of a gift item than a replacement for the usual bar of Dial.

We browsed several of the 13 different sports-fan shops, such as Field of Dreams and Champs, stuffed with pro and college jerseys, hats, sweatshirts and so on. We looked in on Ridemakerz, which specializes in radio-controlled cars; and Archives, filled with scrapbooking supplies. Rainbow had an edgy assortment of sunglasses and clothes. There was Corda-Roy's Originals — bean-bag chairs made of corduroy.