Cousin's... so many babies.

On the passage few days of KC to St Louis… the current is fast, the engineered levies are not particularly interesting, but the miles are tantalizingly low numbers!

I did stop in Jefferson City to visit with one of Dave the Kayaker’s friends Cecil and Joe the park builder

… who fist fights anyone who abuses dogs.  (There is not even a boat launch in the capital of Missouri… There is one on the other side of the river though.)

I stopped in a few towns… but was excited to get to St Louis, where my Aunt and Uncle happened to be visiting my cousin to diddle around to long.  Like I said, the river is not appreciated this whole section, though I did find a park in St Charles, Mo.  In the Park there are several sunken barges piled on top of each other.  I tied the boat off to one of the sunken barges.  (I hope maritime luck doesn’t rub off… because the Mermaid was hanging out with those sunken unlucky vessels for several days.)

Usually my family is a bunch of shudder bugs, but these are the only real pictures I have from that visit.  

My cousin has twin 1.5 year olds. I was sleeping on the couch.  About 6am the boy wakes up and starts playing in the living room.  

Suddenly!  He sees a crazy looking bearded stranger laying on the couch watching him!  Reasonably his first reaction was to run behind my cousin and peak out tentatively.  After a few minutes of my not eating him, he decided I was a welcome addition to the living room and starts demonstrating his ability to dump over boxes of toys and laugh.  

The girl woke up and laid in her crib singing until my cousin brought her out into the living room too. No hesitation on her part at all. 

“Sweet!  A new “adult” to read me books.”  About thirty seconds after meeting me we were discussing the merits of bananas being yellow and the fact that this is a circle. Being our first meeting and being family we stayed away from the politics and drama of Micky’s clubhouse but I think we would have agree that Minny really should be the one running things at the clubhouse. 

An Asian Carp that jumped into the boat.

This is Churchill Clark.  The Great Great.... grandson of William Clark!  Still lives along the Missouri and spends his time making dug out canoes.  I don't know how I managed not to take a picture of one of his dug out canoes... You can find his work HERE.