Our Summer Vacation – Day 9
On Day 9 of our vacation we took a break from the outdoor activities and spent a little time indoors at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton. The Town Center Mall is a gigantic 200+ store mall where we had to park at the far reaches of the parking lot even on a Thursday afternoon.
First Stop – The Pandora Jewelry Store, not to be confused with Pandora’s Box, a totally different business which markets a monthly “relationship enhancement subscription box for couples.”
A few years ago, I purchased my wife a Pandora Charm Bracelet. Ok, maybe she purchased it, but I’m pretty sure I was there. Now, whenever we travel, she has an excuse to visit a Mall that has a Pandora store so she can add a charm to her bracelet as a keepsake of our journey. When we are dead, our daughter-in-law is going to inherit a charm bracelet with a lot of shiny pineapples, sea shells and palm trees on it.
As my wife and granddaughter headed to Pandora, my grandson and I chose a different venue: Auntie Anne’s pretzel store. There are actually two of them in the Town Center Mall. We were just as happy with a large lemonade and a box of warm cinnamon sugar pretzel parts as my wife and granddaughter were picking out a new charm.
Whereas malls in mid-Missouri might feature a new pick-up or an all-terrain vehicle on display, the two Florida malls were considerably more upscale. The Galleria Mall in Fort Lauderdale had a Rolls Royce on display. Sticker price – $384,0000. The Town Center Mall has a Tesla sales location with pricey – but not Rolls Royce pricey – energy-efficient vehicles on display.
While even the Sears store in Jefferson City bit the dust, the Town Center Mall offers such Specialty stores as Pea in the Pod maternity store, Everything But Water designer swimwear, a Papyrus fine paper store and a Mont Blanc fine pen store.
Everything from A (Auntie Anne’s Pretzels) to Z (Zumiez Cutting edge clothing, shoes, accessories, and gear for skateboarding, snowboarding, and surf lifestyles for guys, girls, and kids).
In 2007, the Town Center Mall made the national news when 3 people were kidnapped at the mall
& murdered. One of the cases involved a mother & young daughter who were found bound & shot in the head inside their SUV at the Mall. Though that case was featured on America’s Most Wanted it remains unsolved. At no time did I feel uneasy while walking around the mall (other than looking at the prices). I suspect a few rich people may have looked at me sideways and clutched their purse a bit tighter as we passed. Now there is a police substation right in the Mall.
The truth in advertising award at the Mall goes to Junk de Luxe, advertised as “first and foremost, about a certain kind of hip, urban attitude. An uncompromisingly urban cross over style, making its presence felt on the biggest catwalk of them all: the street”.
It was time for us to take our junk back to “the street”.
Actually, “the beach”.
The Town Center Mall was impressive, but we’ve got Malls in Missouri.
It was time to get back to the reason we drove 1300 miles to get to south Florida.
The hypnotizing, awe-inspiring, timeless beach.
The View From the Other Side of the Hill 
Seems like another life now, but we were here just last February.
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I know exactly what you mean. My wife and I love to travel but we haven’t been more than 50 miles from home in 2020.
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