Beautiful Steamboat

So this is my second year back to Kansas City, and my second time visiting the arabia steamboat. I love this steamboat, out of all the things I have visited in all my little trips and holidays, on my mission, and even back in Europe, this museum competes for one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I love everything about it, and how the steamboat got to be here. I am jealous of the family that discovered the steamboat and the adventures that they've shared in digging it out and finding all this buried cargo. It's just so crazy and lucky for them. They found history perfectly preserved in the Missouri mud. I can't think of many things that would be funner than looking for buried treasure and then actually finding it.

The steamboat they found had a ginormous cargo full of merchandise for the little towns along the river. It went down without ever making a stop, the top part of the steamboat broke off and floated further down the river, but the cargo hold sunk and was never recovered. After a century and a half, the river course changed, leaving the boat buried in preserving mud in the middle of a farmers corn field. The boat was there till the rumor of a buried steamboat reached the ears of one of the coolest families ever, the Hawleys, who went out and started digging.

Here's just a few pictures I took of what they dug out:

keys, door knobs, hinges, tools

knives, forks, spoons

dishes, china, bottles, kettles, pots and pans

clothes pins

wooden matches

fruit

I don't know if anyone else finds this stuff exciting. I obviously can't get enough of it. I think I love it because it's just such a fun story, and I'm happy that someone got to experience it and then share it with the rest of us. I, for one, am grateful.