It’s hot everywhere.  And humid.  But we took a photo; so today happened.  We actually are chilling, staying with friends in Kansas City.  We had a nice breakfast, did some re-supply in Target, ate lunch in Whole Foods, went to Starbucks (of course) and didn’t plan any of it.

We did visit the Arabia Steamboat Museum.  The Arabia was a Missouri River steamboat that sank in 1856.  It carried 200 tons of cargo with it.  Over time the channel, and the whole river, moved quite a bit.  In 1987 two families of fathers and sons discovered it under a farmer’s field.  They spent about a million bucks excavating it and what remained of its cargo.  The cargo, that which had not washed away during the sinking, was remarkably well-preserved.  Anyway, blah, blah, blah, you can read the website if you like.

The most interesting thing, in the writer’s opinion, is this:  Civil War historians and buffs have long argued about various facets of life at the time.  Then these guys raised (or dug up) the boat and its cargo and settled lots of these questions.  For example, they found many pens, ink wells and lots of paper indicating the people of the time and region were better educated and more literate than thought.  So yeah, that.

As promised, a photo: