Greens Bottom to St. Charles

Met Jill at Greens Bottom for a resupply of water and a change of packs. Tomorrow will be my last day so I changed from my 30-pound backpack to a daypack with water first aid stuff, bug spray, and water. Total weight: 12 pounds. You're not allowed to camp along the trail with Machens 18 miles away. I'm going to celebrate at a hotel and nice restaurant tonight since tomorrow is my last day on the trail. My luck held up. All hotel rooms within a 30-mile radius was booked solid thanks to the Southern Baptist Convention. The only room I could find was smoking and $94. In the words of my old friend Mary Daugherty, they can "kiss upon it". My revenge was walking into Applebees wearing clothes that haven't been laundered in 60 miles. It tuned a lot of heads. I hated driving the 30 miles home but didn't have a lot of choice. The hike to St. Charles resumed the next day with my 12-pound pack. It was pretty uneventful; I guess that's normal when you hike certain sections too many times.
The trailhead at St. Charles is really cool. There's an old depot in Frontier Park, it's also the starting place in Missouri for the Lewis & Clark expedition in 1803. Old town St. Charles is really nice.