We spent most of the day expressing joy and shock that this thing we'd talked about and planned for months was actually happening. The weather was perfect, the trail was empty except for a few stray cyclists, and we kept telling each other that walking eleven miles in a day was much easier than we'd thought it was going to be. (First-day arrogance showed how little we knew!)

After setting up camp at the trailside camp area complete with vault toilet, covered picnic table, and water faucet/drinking fountain, we walked into Bushong proper, which had not only a beautiful city park, but a veterans memorial built by Gary Smith and Dianne Smith. We got to meet Gary the next morning as he helps maintain the trailside spot. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo with him, but you can read more about his and Dianne's nonprofit, the North Lyon County Veteran Memorial Project.

Only 5.97 trail miles today. We took our time packing up our camping gear at Bushong (and took some extra time to charge up our electronics in the morning sun before setting off