Taco in a Bag at Twine Ball Day

About a month ago, I wrote a post about the "limited food options" I faced while traveling in a small Mexican town.

Well, now it's time to poke fun at my own backyard.

While spending the day in Darwin, Minnesota for the small town's celebration of Twine Ball Day, once again my food options were limited.

True, hot dogs and hamburgers were firing on a grill under the Lions tent. But I'm not really a hot dog and hamburger fan.

So, after checking out all the food options in town (which didn't take long), I settled on what looked to be the most popular choice. Nearly every other person, it seemed, was walking around with a bag of Doritos and a fork. Hmmmm.

Turns out, they were eating "Taco in a Bag." Slit open a bag or Doritos, dump in a spoonful of ground beef (ugh), some shredded lettuce, some shredded cheese, chopped onions, some jalapenos and top it all off with some salsa. Yum.

It wasn't so bad. I was really hungry, though.

Twine Ball Museum, Darwin, Minnesota

The Twine Ball Museum in Darwin, Minnesota houses all sorts of memorabilia submitted by townsfolk. This was my favorite:

Twine Ball Day! Darwin, Minnesota

This was Jen's idea.

She owns a book called Oddball Minnesota and its full of interesting tidbits about where you can find goofy things like the state's biggest chicken and a two-story outhouse.

However, she didn't care about either one of these. She wanted to see the biggest ball of twine.

Yes, twine.

So she went. Last year she road tripped it to Darwin, Minnesota to see "The World's Biggest Ball of Twine Made by One Person."

When she got there, the place was a bit in disarray as the day before had been the small town's summer celebration: Twine Ball Day.

She had missed Twine Ball Day -- an entire day dedicated to the glorious ball of twine -- by just a few hours! She refused to miss the celebration this summer! And I was to be her lucky companion!

Twine Ball Day was a packed house! People had come from all over to see the parade, play in a volleyball tournament, tour the Twine Ball Museum, drink beer and watch a tractor pull.

It was a humid, sunny day and it felt good to be out of the city and participating in something that was designed for nothing other than a bit of fun and foolishness.

Sadly, though, while we could look at the biggest ball of twine -- which is 13 feet tall -- we couldn't touch it.

It's housed in a glass gazebo to keep curious hands, and volatile Minnesota weather, away from it. They don't want that twine ball to start rotting!