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Sunday, August 28, 2016

KC... Good BBQ and bad boat ramps

So, the last city on the Missouri River that loves the river is Atchison, Kansas.  Home town of Amelia Earhart!  (Turns out no planes downtown or anything… just her house.) When I say it is the last city on the Missouri that loves the river, I mean that it has a park along the river, docks for visiting boaters, overlooks… you know… incorporates the fact that one of the great rivers of the world flows through it. There really is a beautiful park and cool downtown.  

But, you didn’t come here for travel information… You came for the seemingly impossible adventures of Notorious!

I got to Kansas City. KC does not love the river.  They have walled it off, hidden it, and are mostly afraid that it will make a mess of their train town!  For a city of about half a million people, there is only one mediocre little boat launch on the far end of town that doesn’t even have a dock.  Kipling, Michigan has more water front facilities than the half a million people city of Kansas City!  INCREDIBLE!

Well, I guess when the trains came to town, KC stopped being a town devoted to the steamboat, and started being a FRN Train Town.

To KC’s credit, they have beautifully restored their old Union Station.  


It is really impressive actually!


While New York has torn down their beautiful station, and Detroit’s is effectively modern ancient ruins.  So… there is something…  but not friendly to the river.

I found what looks like an old steam boat terminal and tied The Mermaid up to it.  There is a set of stairways that lead up the thirty foot rock embankment into the city.  I tied up the boat, and as has been effective so far, trusted luck and people to be good.  So far so good.

I wanted to explore the city, so I got a room, took a shower, and explored.  Visit the Arabia Steam Boat Museum.  It will inspire treasure hunter in anyone.

In the morning I came back to the boat.  Not particularly used waterfront… no person had bothered the boat.


So, here is where I hid the boat...  Can you see it?

Down the hill... what the?!?!  

 This is not good... It was floating in six feet of water when I left yesterday!

About here is where I realized that I had totally wasted taking a shower.  The boat is almost tumbling down the bank into the water... held from rolling off by the now guitar taunt mooring lines.


The GOPRO walleye vision is odd here, but the boat is about two feet above the water on some rocks and an I beam. I had tied it up the afternoon before at about the level where you see the lines on the poles.  The thing was perched so that if the mooring lines weren't holding it, it would roll right down on it's side into the river. Now I couldn't slide it out or untie the lines...  Some hard corp practical problem solving about to happen.



Several hours and not at all clean anymore, the boat was finally back in the water.  It had been pearched up on this steel thing.  The keel was resting in the poky part of the I beam... so I couldn't even slide it down. 


As far as I could tell, no holes punched in the bottom from this operation.  Though totally luck on that.  The mooring lines luckily held it from rolling off down the bank into the river on its side.  All my stuff would have been in Arkansas if they hadn't.  




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