Not really much help, but I can sympathize with your closest Ikea being so far away. We wanted their peninsula butcher block counter for our kitchen and it was $350 to ship that as well (for a $200 counter). We ended up making a long weekend of it and drove almost 5 hours each way to NYC and hit the Brooklyn Ikea on the way home. Totally worth it in the end, but plan on spending most of the day in Ikea. We were there for 3 hours (and ate there too) and I still think we missed going through half the store. It was like nothing I've ever seen before.

Yes, I've been to the Mpls. Ikea and time really loses all meaning when you're in there. It's exhausting. I suppose I could go visit my sister and bring one back, too. She lives about 20 minutes from that Ikea.