It's Three O'Clock Somewhere

You never know where the Three O'Clock ride will go. They might even go where I suggested.



It happened so fast, I didn't even realize it, but Corinna mentioned the garden tour, and I mentioned the Kauffman Center, and the next thing I know, not only have we gone up tot eh Kauffman, but we checked out a sculpture garden I had pointed out and Toni was thanking me for 'bringing us here.'



I hadn't even realized I had.



I was vaguely disappointed we didn't hit any gardens. Even the one we rode within a block of on Broadway, that would have been easy. But I got caught up in where we did ride and forgot about it until after. So the disappointment was more like the next day. And it was, as I say, vague.



We hung out by the FBI headquarters, the view from up there is fantastic. Actually, I think I enjoyed Julian (the kid in the diaper) enjoying the view more than I enjoyed the view itself. He really knows how to make you see a place with new eyes.




And the kid is a kind of dirt-finding savant. He really enjoys it, and to his mother's credit, she lets him and then patiently cleans him up. Rinse and repeat. And I mean really, repeat.



We went and looked for the building in the West Bottoms I read about a few weeks ago. It had partially collapsed, as I recalled, part of the sixth and seventh floors or something like that.





I kept looking for it as I'd ride through on my commute and not finding it. The Bottoms aren't that big, and I know the buildings down there are all very similar in size and architecture, but I expected it to be a more distinguishing feature, part of the building falling down.



We found it, right around the time Union Pacific decided to park a train between two parts of the group.






After we found a beer store and got the whole sick crew back together, we headed out to Kaw Point. Which is a lot smaller than it was last time I rode the Three O'Clock Ride.



A lot of Kaw Point was under water. Lewis and Clark were almost wet.



I know they rescheduled the Trash Boat Regatta because of the flooding, which I didn't understand. Too little water, I can see that being a problem because the boats can't float. But too much water?



Then we watched a basketball and later a large block of Styrofoam get sucked under in the whirling vortexes that form in the confluence of the two rivers; never saw the basketball again, and it was most of an hour before the big white block reached escape velocity and resurfaced to head on towards St. Louis.



It was calm enough at the edge, Corinna took a dip. But she said she could feel strong currents at the edges of where she was, fast cold currents.



I mentioned this kid has an affinity for dirt, right? It was a hot day, and apparently this sand felt cool. I probably should have tried it and then jumped in the river with Corinna.



We tried a new Mexican joint on the Boulevard to cap things off. New to us, anyway. A buffet with more seafood than I've ever seen on a buffet that price outside a casino. Well. I say seafood, but I'm told tilapia don't count because they're a freshwater fish.



Well, in Kansas City they do. Catfish, bass and crawdads qualify in this part of the country.


I did ride Christy's bike to check out the bullhorn style handlebars. Confirmed what I've suspect for a long time, them's the bars for me. Ergonomically, they just work, even when you're riding a bike that totally doesn't fit you in any dimension.