River Kids Rock the River

by Melanie Cheney

Well it started with a phone call, the River Kids were doing a week long, river-focused day camp and would love to join up with Missouri River Relief again on the Big River.  We had taken them out last year on the Mississippi, locking through a dam for the first time and worked with them on several clean-ups in years past.  They are a pretty hard-core group of kids, traveling to islands on the mighty Mississippi by canoe with our brother, Big Muddy Mike of Big Muddy Adventures, and have been doing small clean-ups on big rivers for years now.

So if that weren't enough incentive to hit the road with our boats, the River Kids have decided to host their annual party & fundraiser at the City Museum this fall in honor of Missouri River Relief's 10th Anniversary!  So on up we went, to take the kids out on a river trip for their summer day camp.

We met the crew of 20 at the Columbia Bottoms boat ramp.  As is usually the case when we travel to the confluence, the weather was less than ideal.  Winds were blowing in gusts up to 30 miles an hour.  I tied my hat on my head & recommended they do the same.  Once we got out on the river, it didn't seem so bad, we motored up the wide Missouri, then floated back down towards the Confluence of the 2 biggest rivers on this continent, the Missouri & Mississippi.

On the even wider Mississippi, we floated past big islands, enjoying the up-close views of herons & egrets, and best of all, an active eagles nest, all the while, looking for somewhere to eat lunch.  With the rivers running high this Spring, now into the Summer, there wasn't exactly any sandbars to stop at.  So we simply ate lunch in the boats, which the kids didn't seem to mind at all.  They were pretty easy going, and knew a "Big Muddy Adventure" entailed rolling with what the river handed you.   

So on down we went, past the beautiful chain of rocks bridge to our destination, Mosenthein Island.  Here along one of the biggest islands around, there was suppose to be guaranteed at least one sandy spit we could stop at & let them out to play.  Well, there was a sandy spit, but it was about the size of a one-roomed shack.  We stopped anyway, & had a fabulous time letting loose on what we called "Gilligans Island".  There were perfectly round hatched out turtle eggs all over, water soaked sand which made for enticing "quick sand", along with a gigantic red buoy the kids had fun playing on.  We took this group photo from "Gilligans Island" with the St. Louis skyline in the background as the kids literally walked on water.

Ok, it was time to get to work.  Finding a dry place to get in on the island was next to impossible.  It was super muddy with all the high water, so we just got muddy.  There was trash all over the island, we only needed to cover about a 1/4 mile stretch before we had created a large pile of bags to be loaded onto the boats.  The timing was perfect, one hour later, we were headed back for the bus.  We let the kids out at North Riverfront park and formed a "daisy chain" to get the blue bags of trash to the nearest trash receptacle.  Then cleaned up around the highly popular fishing spot before saying our farewells.  The clouds finally cleared up & the wind calmed, what a beautiful day it had turned out!

We took our now empty boats back to the island, and loaded 22 tires the kids had piled up in past clean-ups with Big Muddy Mike before they floated away in what was sure to be more high water soon, & headed back to the Confluence.

It was our brand new plate boats first clean-up, and after asking the River Kids for ideas on names, we christened the boat in the Confluence, and dubbed it the "Robust Ana Deca"  or "RAD" after some great suggestions by the river kids crew.   It literally means "Robust Anniversary Decade".  I don't know if that's what we'll call her for sure, but it sure did  have a nice ring to it on her maiden voyage!

Many thanks to the New City School's River Kids, and their teacher Ben Griffiths for allowing us to be an integral part of such an outstanding crew of young people.