crayola experience, mall of america

this afternoon i went to see the Crayola experience at the mall of America. i had a free ticket from the state fair and wanted to use it before i forgot about having it as it would expire in early august. it was a thin crowd as it was a weekday, which is fine with me. i started off with two tokens, and i used both. one was to create my own crayon, in terms of what i put on the label. the other looked more like a vending machine. it dispensed a pack that said 'model magic', and i haven't opened it yet. i am thankful i had the free ticket as it was hard to tell what the admission fee would have been otherwise, based on the postings i saw outside the place. i know i had picked up some discount flyers that said '$5 off', there were 3 of these flyers i had kept. from dairy queen, super-America, and subway. i also had two slightly similar brochures, that said on the front 'discover the magic of color at the world's newest Crayola attraction!' one said coming to the mall summer 2016, the other said buy tickets online and save. i noticed there was a smashed penny machine, so i got one of those souvenirs after i had left the exhibit. i like those smashed pennies, getting close to completing a second album. i picked up another brochure there, a map and info guide. looks like i covered just about everything they had there- except for toddler town (a play area) and the café (wasn't hungry and an employee said 'we're closed' when i started to look around after the nearby silly putty show ended). there was so much to see and do there, proven with all of the pages i ended up with. i made my own jigsaw puzzle, 6 pieces, wrote in different crayons 'emerson hough huskies, the covered wagon' on it. early on i posed for a photo and it was added to my own coloring page. one sees a laughing crayon on one side of me and a squirrel on the other side. there were two more coloring pages i acquired, one has a pee wee football player on it and the other a nymph riding a ladybug. there was also a 'you design' coloring page, i chose the one with a car on it. i had to color my design and then it was scanned into their system. there was also a 'rocking paper' ladybug, and a clapboard for filming a movie that i used paint to color in. there was a drying machine for it after i was done. there even was two-tone 'splatter art' on a circular page, and a car that was made out of melted crayon. actually i have two souvenir crayons, besides the aforementioned one where i made my own label, there was one given after the factory show in the theater. inside it was keeping track of how many crayons had been made, it was in the quadrillions. it reminded me of a similar electronic sign at Coca-Cola world in Atlanta. i even had some art emailed to me. it was probably more fun for the kids, i could tell how much some of them liked the silly putty show. but i still enjoyed it and learned a few things. in the history display it spoke of the crayons being part of the 1904 st. louis world's fair. and of course i used Crayola crayons and markers as a kid, so it was familiar to me. especially the smell of the crayons. so it was worth it to see it. before i went in i found a wishing well at the mall for the four Canadian pennies i had.
   in the morning i got a look at the herberger's liquidation sale at the mall in Roseville, but i didn't buy anything. there was nothing i really needed, and it is early so the discounts are still small. i also went to the library and printed a few things and applied for more jobs.
   in the evening i watched two 'roseanne' episodes that i had missed, they were the first two that had originally aired less than a month ago. then i went to perform at two different venues. i spoke of being at the Crayola experience, and shared some more funny things that the kids wrote on the essays i had to read as a test scorer last week.