Towards a Ball of Twine – Roadside Photography

I have long extolled the virtues of the web site Roadside America. It is endlessly fun, extraordinarily comprehensive, well laid-out and provides an accessible and vital key into an important part of American culture. Thus, it is a mandatory visit for me when I find myself headed someplace with a couple of hours to kill.

In the case of my December visit to Minneapolis, one thing was clearly evident to me the moment I stopped by Roadside America.

I had to see the world’s largest ball of twine.

How’s that for a fun self-portrait? It’s me, and a huge-ass ball of twine. Want to see more pictures of the twine? Head up there and take some – trust me, there won’t be a crowd blocking your view, especially if you go in the winter. And besides, it turns out that the title of World’s Largest Ball of Twine is not entirely agreed-upon, given that they have had to write in an addendum to the effect that this is the world’s largest ball of twine gathered by a single man.

But I knew that before I went, and to be honest, I enjoyed my visit to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine (gathered by one man). It is one of those life “to do” list events that most folks never get around to taking seriously, let alone accomplishing, and it brought me to a small town that was quietly going about the business of living its life and taking the twine in stride. I noticed a small motel – which seemed out of business – that invoked the ball of twine in its name, and street signs with a ball of twine logo printed on them.

I have traveled enough to know that small towns can have extremely complex relationships with their claim to fame, and I took the trouble to speak to precisely zero locals (though, in my defense, at the time and temperature in which I visited, there was nobody around, whatsoever). Thus, I can’t begin to tell you if the ball of twine is a local hero, a much-hated albatross, an ignored curiosity or a draw that still brings in the tourists.

But I can tell you that all of my pictures of it are of the round and twine-filled variety, and not particularly interesting. Plus, it is kept inside a large, glass gazebo with a locked door, and the snow and dim lighting made for quite the reflection-fest.

So let’s talk instead about what I saw on the way to see the world’s largest ball of twine. Because in my experience in driving all over this land, one of the constants for me has been that roadside surprises often make for the most fun photographs. Sure, one element that plays into this is the surprise itself- you expect the destination but you never expect the specifics along the route. If you suddenly see someone’s yard filled with a pyramid of truck tires, or an old Burma Shave sign, you have “found” a photograph and feel suitably photographer-like and have something to show for your time spent driving from Point A to Point B. Who wouldn’t like that?

In my case, I had two fun surprises.

First I passed Peppermint Twist, a summer drive-up burger and ice cream place that features a large picnic area filled with hand-made decorations that mostly consist of bears and other creatures advertising ice cream flavors, frolicking with one another or just sort of standing there doing diddley-squat.

No attempt has been made to ward off the perils of the Minnesota winter. The snow was surely more than eighteen inches deep in places and seemed quite undisturbed; the bears and their friends all quietly waiting for the summer to once again spread their cheer.

I actually drove past this site at first and spent about thirty inexcusable seconds trying to decide if I wanted to turn around or not. After all, I had not yet laid eyes upon my good friend Mr. B. O’Twine. But in the end there was really no choice – the opportunity to play with composition and color management was far too tempting.

To be honest, I would have loved to have spent two solid hours photographing the place, but given that it was private property and I had not the faintest clue who owned it or where they could be found, I was not in much the mood to trudge onto the land and begin to go wild with the camera.

This was hardly my only diversion on my way to indulge in the twine. From time to time, perhaps feeling too out-of-touch by being on the local highway, I would take a random turn that seemed promising. This is one of the joys of a GPS – you can take any turn you like and not feel too much like you have to pay attention to where you are going. Of course, one could easily counter that by not paying attention, you are missing out on the back road experience to begin with. But if you are having that argument with yourself, out loud, then you have mastered the art of what happens to you when you spend days of your life driving on American back roads, and thus you can easily win the argument against yourself.

Still with me?

Along the way I passed all manner of interesting, and very typical, off-the-beaten path sights. Pick any one square-mile rural area along a road in about fifteen states in the middle of this country, and you can expect to see some sort of silo.

Hooray silo!

Mind you, the silos often come with local distinctions or decorations that make them always a little different – in this area, the checkerboard pattern around the top was visible on numerous other silos. In some other areas, the silos might all be half-brick. But whatever the decoration scheme, trust me – the silo will be there.

If you don’t find a silo, you will certainly find a piece of private property with the impossibly photogenic discarded, disused or poorly maintained rusting thing on it.

Oh, the yards I have seen! Oh, the desert landscapes! Oh, the sheer number of yards, ranches, and vacant lots upon which one or more rusting things were sitting, just absolutely begging to be photographed.

This particular rusting thing was right near a symmetrical stand of trees that likewise seemed to have been set up for a back road photography lesson. This small, back road intersection was a fun found surprise on the day, and between the rusting thing and the trees, I spent a very enjoyable fifteen minutes there.

I had parked my car on the side of the road and, flashers blinking all the while, stood nearby shooting picture after picture. Despite this, four cars and pick-up trucks pulled over in the fifteen minutes I was there.

In each case, the driver wanted to know if I needed help, and was somewhere between flabbergasted and annoyed that I didn’t. One man, in response to my comment that I was just doing photography, said “If you say so, brother” and pulled off down the road, shaking his head all the while, as if to say, “Some people just can’t be helped…photography…right…must be ‘idiot’ for ‘transmission problems’…”

I suppose it just offended his sense of practicality and purpose that anyone with a working car would ever stop there, in that cold, in the failing light, for any reason, let alone to photograph a stupid rusting thing and a bunch of trees.

I wonder what he would have said if I had told him I was on my way to see the asterisk-bearing World’s Largest Ball of Twine. Oh well…everyone’s a critic.