Drive East – Fourth Stop: Higginsville, Missouri

Saturday, October 22

We got up fairly early for us and got our day started with a quick morning walk around our remote and dilapidated campground.  We heard, and then saw, a cool owl on our walk. I’d never seen a real live owl in the wild before.

We had a quick breakfast, got the van ready to roll and then were on our way.

We stopped quickly for gas at a station that looked like no one had used it in four years, jumped back on to State Route 24 and pushed on toward …

… the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas.

To say that I had been waiting to see the World’s Largest Ball of Twine is probably an overstatement. But I had been talking about it since I started talking about this trip.

The ball of twine has grown in magnitude in my mind since then (ha ha), and so to finally almost be there to see one of them was truly an inspiration for the (otherwise unremarkable) day.

Here’s a quick background: If you check out Wikipedia for “World’s Largest Ball of Twine”, you will find out that there are actually FOUR largest balls of twine. Who knew?

And, you might also question how on earth there can be FOUR largest balls of twine. “Largest” means just that – the largest. The only one.

Now, I can’t purport to explain exactly how this happened or even who made the decision to allow four, but the balls of twine are described like this:

1.     Largest sisal twine ball built by one person (Darwin, Minnesota)

2.     Largest sisal twine ball built by a community (Cawker City, Kansas)

3.     Heaviest ball of twine ever built (Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin)

4.     Largest twine ball every built (Branson, Missouri) 

Apparently, the Branson, Missouri one is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records and is owned by Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Woo hoo.

But in the end, it’s just a big ball of twine. Sitting there. Static. Doing nothing. It’s just not that exciting.  Take a look.

OK, maybe a little exciting since they had decorated it for Halloween. But take a look around Cawker City …

 

… not much there! I think I might have to kill someone if I lived there. There doesn’t seem to be much to do in this small town in the middle-most state in our union.

N.B. – Auggie and I did follow for a short way the little “ball of twine” tour that was marked on the sidewalk. It was a sleeper.  :-( 

After that short and soul-numbing stop, we got back on the (long and barren) road.

 It was Saturday – College Football day! I had missed lots of football so far this year, so I was happy to find a game to listen to. And what a game it was to spice up our drive – the “Sunflower Showdown.” Kansas State Wildcats from Manhattan, KS v. Kansas University Jayhawks from Lawrence, KS.

I’m exaggerating when I say the game “spiced up” our drive – there really wasn’t much of a contest. Kansas State beat Kansas University by a healthy score of 59-21, just as we were pulling into Manhattan, Kansas to fill up the gas tank. (The game had been played in Lawrence, so we didn’t get stuck in game traffic. But there were several cars in Manhattan waving purple banners and tooting their horns to celebrate the win.)

Besides seeing five wild turkeys on the road and an exceptionally large amount of raccoon roadkill, there was not much else to report from the day.

I cheered again when we crossed the border between Kansas and Missouri. Not far across the border into Missouri, we found a campsite just off the interstate in Higginsville, Missouri and spent the night. We'd covered more than 325 miles that day and were ready for some food and some sleep.