Idaho potato truck visits Mountain Home

A supersized symbol of Idaho's potato industry made a brief appearance in Mountain Home the afternoon of April 16.

The Famous Idaho Potato Truck stopped at the Mountain Home Visitor's Center and remained there for about an hour.

Featured in commercials aired by the Idaho Potato Commission, the world's largest "potato on wheels" drove through Mountain Home following a stop at the local Air Force base. The visit was a lead-in to the team's tour of the United States, which officially begins Monday.

The truck and its team will leave Idaho enroute to the Kentucky Derby and will continue across the country for the next five months. Other stops along the team's 17,000-mile journey this year include a parade in Houston, Texas, that's expected to bring together more than 400,000 people.

In 2013, the truck made stops in 50 cities across the United States to raise awareness for the national Meals on Wheels program -- an effort that provides more than one million meals to homebound senior citizens every day.