Day 9: This is what America is all about

Yesterday, I finally got to the "mother land" - the biggest ball of twine (rolled by one man). Anything that begins with "World's largest" is worth a stop, but this is the ultimate in road side attractions. In fact, it's so impressive, Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song about it. You can watch/listen here. The guy who runs the museum there was so proud that Weird Al stopped by and gave him a can of chocolate soda (because of one of the lyrics in the song) but he never did drink it (Weird Al said it tasted gross).

There is another "biggest ball" in Kansas, but this one was rolled by one guy from sometime around the 50s to the 70s. He was also an accomplished whittler, carving large pliers where each handle is itself another set of pliers (and this goes on and on and on). I think this guy had a lot of free time.

Here it is - the largest ball of twine

But the awesomeness doesn't end there - when we got there, the lady who works there was opening up the gazebo to sweep it out and she let us walk in and touch it. She said we should "touch and smell" it. It smelled like old twine; kind of musty. But it was super cool that here was an attraction that they were okay if you touched (maybe it was the Washington license plates that made her think I was responsible and wouldn't take a section of twine).

How many people get this close?

Me posing next to the ball of twine

Really, that was the big excitement of the day. Aside from sleeping in, having lunch at a park, and just otherwise relaxing and not driving too much it was a good day. But there was also an unplanned roadside stop, because driving back from the ball of twine I noticed a big chicken statue. So I zipped off the road, ran out and took a picture:

How could I not stop for this chicken!

I also learned about the largest skillet (I think it's in Iowa) and so I'm thinking I should find the "largest" items needed to make a meal (maybe fried chicken?) That would be a fun pictoral :)

But the neat thing about this day is how much American's just love to make things as big as possible and then put it at a roadside stop. So I think I need a new hobby so I can create my own "World's largest" something :)