Adam has done a lot of research on where to stop and what to see on Route 2 and this one has always been a joke but at the same time, a funny option for us all. It's a 20 minute detour off the main roads and we start heading out there. As we go, I start mentioning that it is strange that there is no signs for this tourist trap. Adam casually mentions that "it's just in some guy's garage. If he is home he will talk to you". I'm sorry, what? Abby has the same reaction. I think we all thought we were going to a formal tourist trap with a gift shop, and a guided tour around a twine ball. Nope. Just some guy's garage. We get there and there is actually another family already there visiting with the owner! Best case scenario for me because it "proves" that this is real and we get to see what happens to those tourists and if they survive. As we approach they leave and JFK (twine owner) begins talking with us. He has been working on this ball of twine since 1979. He stopped drinking in 1975 and starting doing the ball of twine 4 years later to keep his hands busy. He calls them "God hands" because they have no callouses or cuts after working on this ball of twine every day for 4 - 5 hours for 46 years. The ball weighs in at a whopping 22,975 lbs. He measures it by weighing the twine in batches and then adding the twine to the ball. He gets the twine for free from his next door neighbor who has horses (no further explanation was provided on the connection between horses and twine). JFK was born on groundhog's day and tells us 3 - 4 times that he is the only talking groundhog we'll ever meet. He also assures us he is the only twine ball making groundhog named JFK that there will ever be. We agree. We head out from there to get an oil change. We are officially over 2,000 miles on this trip and right at the oil change point. We hit up a Valvoline which is pretty cool because we never leave the car... We also hit the central time zone during our travels and picked up an extra hour! I remember now that I love this part of the trip, but hate when we're coming home and we lose the hours...
There were lots of great off-shoots to the formal Route 2 today which let us explore the areas a bit more. There are so many murals painted on buildings in the middle of the country. I wish we did that more on the east coast. We stop multiple times to enjoy the artwork and cute towns. At one stop we see a store for Moose. Not sure if it's for buying moose...or for moose customers. At these stops I also see Abby really enjoying photography and she is getting some incredible shots! Check out her "Abby pic's" page.
We then head to the hotel in Minnesota after weaving in and out of WI and MI all day. The hotel is right on lake Superior and is gorgeous. We make dinner reservations for a fancier place right on the water who supposedly has famous onion rings. We drive to the restaurant but there is road construction and we can't figure out how to get there anymore. So we park in public parking and take a nice walk by the water to the restaurant. Everything was delicious and the portions were stupid big. The onion rings were outstanding...so good that even Gideon ate two! We also got stuffed mushrooms and though they were $4 per small mushroom, they were insanely good.
We drove back to the hotel to have a fight about not going into the pool at 9pm local, 10pm our time. We survive the fight and all get to bed early because it seems we all need it.
Summary: Replace one addiction with a less harmful one, enjoy the side roads. Ended the day at the Fairfield Inn, Deluth, MN.