I first discovered my love for roadside oddities when I was 22. It was early spring and a group of my friends had decided to embark upon the 23-hour drive from Des Moines to San Francisco. We were less than two hours into our trek when I forced a detour in the suburb of Boys Town, Nebraska, to see the World’s Largest Ball of Stamps. Weighing in at 600 pounds, that quirky mess of stamps instantly stole my heart. It was my first world’s largest thing, and it certainly wouldn’t be my last.

The summer before I turned 25 I was itching for a new challenge. In the past year, I’d driven everywhere from Connecticut to Texas and written about all sorts of unique attractions on my blog, Olio in Iowa. But I wanted something more. So I concocted a plan to spend the next five years having one of my biggest (I suppose you could say, my world’s largest) adventure yet.