So I drove down to Joplin the other day, just for the hell of it, and packed my camera, hoping to snap some pictures of the infamous Web City “praying hands,” and cheesy, semi-noteworthy roadside attraction featured in several books and websites, though by no means a tourist attraction.

Coming in from Kansas I had no idea where I was in relation to anything, and it took some driving around to orient myself. While trying to find my way back to Webb City (a suburb of Joplin), I passed an interesting restaurant with a giant bowl of noodles out front. Now, there are probably bigger noodles somewhere, but these were noticeably large. Some of the noodles were made of Christmas lights, and I’m sure they would have been sight to behold come nightfall. I did take a real picture, but I seem to have lost it.

I stopped in for lunch, and they had decent, reasonably priced Thai food, though reasonably priced by Thai standards doesn’t always equal reasonably priced by food standards. I never understood why it cost so much to throw a handful of bamboo shoots and rice on a skillet.

I eventually found my way to the hands (after asking for directions…), which are situated on a large hill in a small park. Upon closer inspection, the hill seemed to be constituted of debris from a nearby flooded quarry, which makes sense considering Joplin’s history as a mining town. The hands stand atop a monument surrounded by American flags, on which is inscribed, “Hands in prayer, world in peace.”

The hands aren’t particularly well-sculpted, considering their size, but the enormous veins more than make up for it. One might also notice a large number of footprints in the concrete sidewalk leading up to them, for whatever reason.

Upon nearing the hands I noticed a small hatch on their backside had been left open. The invitation was more than I could resist, and in I climbed. The innards of the hands were basically what I expected them to be: just a lot of wood, rebar, chicken wire, and poured concrete. It didn’t take me long to get bored in there, and after that there wasn’t much left to do in Joplin, other than go to the mall, which I did (much nicer than Battlefield, btw).

The Webb City Praying Hands’ official website is here: http://www.prayinghands.org/