The Great Big Idaho Potato Truck stopped by BJ’s Wholesale Club on Starling Drive June 15 as part of a seven-month cross-country tour marking the Idaho Potato Commission’s (IPC) 75th Anniversary and raising funds and awareness for Meals on Wheels. Among the visitors who had their photos taken in front of the "specially cultivated” potato -- which weighs six tons and stands almost 12 feet tall -- were Andre Ragsdale, age 13, and nine-year-old Nathan Ramirez.

Hauled by a 48-foot-long, specially-constructed flatbed trailer that took a year to build, the 28-foot-long potato made its national debut at the Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise, Idaho in December when ESPN featured it during the game. The IPC estimates that a similar-sized potato would take more than 10,000 years to grow, take two years and nine months to bake, and would be 1,102 times heavier than the largest potato ever grown, which weighed 11 pounds.