The Great Brush Creek Float of 1998
Brush Creek runs through the heart of Kansas City, Missouri. It is located on the southern edge of one of the nicest shopping and residential areas of K.C. known as the Plaza. The creek was nothing more than a drainage area until a couple of years ago when the city decided to enlarge it, put in a walkway, and turn it into an attraction.
A local company, Plaza Riverwalk Venture, Inc., launched a couple of excursion boats on this creek, on June 20, 1998. It seemed like such a crazy idea, we knew we had to participate somehow. We were hoping to get a rise out of someone.
The creek had been a 4' wide concrete trough for so long, the city officials probably never envisioned any kind of traffic on the creek itself. Figuring that no one had passed a law against public boating in the new 70' wide waterway yet, we felt that it was our duty to put the Dangerous Laboratories canoe in and make ourselves known.
Here, our fearless explorers set out into the great unknown.
One of the excursion boats, "The DeSoto"
Are we having fun yet?
Nearing the end of the trip upstream, the formidable and impassable "Southwewst Trafficway Falls", we finally met our match, the dreaded "Plaza Patrol" (left). They had to summon the real cop (second from left) who told us that we had to leave. We asked if there was an actual law against boating on Brush Creek and the cop's mysterious friend (third from left) replied "There is today!".
Figuring that they would probably charge us with something else anyway, we turned around and incurred the wrath of the blubber-laden first mate of the "DeSoto" who screamed and frantically waved in an effort to get us off the creek. Having completed our mission, we journeyed downstream and pulled the canoe out of the water
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