And I thought Ace was big.

Compared to the world's largest buffalo, located in Jamestown, N.D., he's but a speck.

We stopped in Jamestown for gas, then followed the World's Largest Buffalo signs to Frontier Village.

We stopped first at a gift shop and chuckwagon restaurant whose sign touted a "four-meat buffet."

The restaurant was closed but the gift shop had a family of buffalo out back, with a calf that had been born Tuesday.

You could "feed" the buffalo, but all that consisted of was buying a bag of food and dropping it down a tube that led to a trough, out of which the buffalo ate.

The world's largest buffalo -- 60 tons, 26 feet high and 46 feet long and repainted just this year -- was erected in 1959 and is part of Frontier Village, a replicated old west town that was later constructed around it. The National Buffalo Museum, which features a live herd of buffalo and a rare albino buffalo named "White Cloud," is also part of the complex.

The village features stagecoach rides, a carousel with real ponies, a general store at which I wolfed down a buffalo burger and the writing shack of Louis Lamour, the writer of western novels who grew up in Jamestown.

I've been getting my first dose of his work on the trip, via a collection of his stories on CD read by Willie Nelson.

I was in the middle of one of those, when, down the interstate a bit, I saw signs for the world's largest sandhill crane.

We didn't bother to exit for it.