While you were making keyboard hanky panky sitting in your cube, Thor Anderson and a handful of other idea-laden 20-somethings built a raft out of things not intended to build rafts with. Like garbage. Then they actually put the thing in the Missouri River right where it intercepts Kansas City, Mo., with the crazy idea of reaching the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi. Last we heard they were floating somewhere past Memphis.
The first week of July, a handful of us met in Kansas City to design and build a raft on which to float downriver to the ocean. There was an open invitation to anybody to participate, anybody who was willing to abandon their preconceptions of the river and join us in pursuit of the possibilities, to “experience the connections — people, places, ideas — the river offers to those who release themselves, to those who live in a city on the water.” We passed out fliers that said these things. So in part this trip was about discovering the river and letting it give us its narrative. Besides researching legal requirements, we left everything else to the river, eschewing maps, motors, radios. Those of us with cell phones left them and buried away. We let the river carry us where it would, only using the paddle wheel and oars to steer clear of obstacles (such as barges, partially submerged wing dikes, buoys) or pull over.
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