Boats and Rows ... of Vegetables.

A couple of weeks ago H and I had the distinct pleasure of hosting some particularly awesome visitors. H's younger brother, his wife, their cutie-pie baby girl, and H's youngest brother drove up from the land of the longhorn to spend the weekend with us. From the moment I came home from work on Friday, it felt like I was on vacation. We ate, we laughed, we did silly things to make the baby smile. I never realized how incredible a baby's smile was until I had a niece.

One of our adventures that weekend included a trip to the heart of Kansas City to see the Steamboat Arabia. This ship was carrying a variety of pre-Civil War goods and over a hundred people along the Missouri River when something in the water snagged the hull and the ship began to sink. Fortunately, everyone on board was a rational thinker and managed to fit into the few lifeboats and row to shore. The ship sank slowly but surely, dragging along the river floor to its final resting place in the Missouri River. 136 years later, a crazy family of excavators decided they wanted to dig the damn thing up.

My favorite pic from the trip. What an awesome anchor. 

I don't remember if the museum had to piece this wheel
back together, but it's impressive nonetheless. 

Millions of hand painted buttons were excavated from the wreck. 

I've wanted to go here since we moved to Kansas City, and I'm so glad that we went. The only disappointing part was the gift shop - I was all geared up to purchase some small wooden piece of the boat when all they had was inspirational posters and paperweights.

Just behind the museum was the Central Market. I'd heard it described as one of the best farmers markets in KC - restaurants line the outside square of the market, buying many of their ingredients from the vendors that fill the stalls. It was early afternoon when we went to take a looksie, so the vendors were starting to close up shop for the day. This ended up working in our favor. We found bananas at one dollar for five pounds, cherries at one dollar for two pounds, strawberry one-pound packets for a dollar each.

I really liked walking through one of the stores set into the outer ring of buildings. It felt like a middle eastern, possibly Indian store with buckets of dried fruits, raw and roasted nuts, and walls lined with packaged goods (which I like to think were all manners of cookies). There was a spice table (the bay leaves were solidly overpriced, but there was this amazing smelling dry rub), and a tiny restaurant (the line took to long to get anything), and a beautiful table of tea leaves. Incredible blends, but a bit too expensive for my taste.

It was a perfect way to end the weekend, and I wish I had taken a few pictures of the market. It's on the northern part of the city, which is outside my five-minute drive policy to any grocery place. It was nice to see how the big city does farmers markets, though.