Hermann, Missouri

We're in Hermann, Missouri, enjoying the cold front that finally came through and having an enjoyable time exploring the town, despite some blisters and other aches and pains (more on this later.)

We started at mile marker 38, a little before St Charles, last Wednesday morning. For the first several miles, we were in the suburbs on St Louis and pedestrian traffic on the trail abounded, albeit mostly bicyclists. I started adjusting my pack and shoes approximately 2 minutes after Sam dropped us off and haven't really stopped doing that! The trail was beautiful, and so was the weather. Unfortunately, the first town with water on the Katy was 21 miles away from us, at Defiance. We made it 18 miles the first day, and had to camp at the Weldon Springs trailhead that night. A blister that had started forming early in the day on my pinky toe popped about a mile before camp, and I limped the last bit. We hadn't really planned on walking that far the first day, but because of limited water options, we had to. The next morning, we had just enough water to get to the next town.

We walked around 8 miles the next day, to the Klondike County Park. It was fairly hot and very humid, and we didn't want to push it too much. The park was terrific, with nice showers and campsites, but the mosquitos were terrible! We began the next day in much better spirits, and took off for Marthasville, which was around 14 miles away. We got started a little later than we had hoped, and spent some time exploring the town of Augusta for lunch, so it was nearly dusk when we got to the baseball diamond in Marthasville and set up camp.

On Saturday we walked from Marthasville to Treloar, where the owner of the local bar and grill allowed us to camp behind the restaurant. Camping was marked as available on the official Katy Trail map, but we never found where it was at. We managed to fall asleep despite the noisy Saturday night activities going on all around us, and woke up before dawn to try to get to the town of McKittrick before the afternoon heat. Sunday was my favorite day on the trail, as the views of the bluffs and the river were beautiful and our early start afforded us more shade. I was able to ignore my blisters until we got there with the aid of an extra ibuprofen, but by the time we finished my feet were on fire. We ended up deciding to stay the night across the river in Hermann and take a rest day to let our blisters recover.

All of our blisters have been healing quite nicely except the initial one on my pinky toe, which is needing a few more days without my boots and the weight of my pack, so we will be taking a brief hiatus to allow it to heal. We'll keep you updated on our plans.

heidi