Day 2• Sept 4, 2016 •  Celebration Park to Bruneau Dunes •  65 miles

Day Two of the tour dawned with the threat of a recurrence of last night’s rain and no small amount of apprehension.  Rationalization was over:  we were now committed to what was most likely a criminal act.  While I stand by the convictions expressed earlier, in the grand scheme of things it’s difficult to make the case that this act of defiance rises to the level of, say, civil rights or women’s suffrage.  We were a band of middle-class white people trespassing on the property of another band of middle-class white people.  If anything, this act was embarrassingly trite.

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A Digression

Perhaps Celebration Park’s biggest attraction is Guffey Railroad Bridge.  It was built in 1897 for the Boise, Nampa, and Owyhee railroad, intended to carry ore from Silver City to Nampa for smelting.  However construction of the track never made it further south than Murphy and was used instead by the farming community.  It was “abandoned in 1947, saved from demolition in the 1970s, and purchased and restored by Canyon County in 1989”(1) as part of Celebration Park.  It now connects Owyhee and Canyon counties via a rail trail suitable for walking, biking, and horseback riding, providing a rare opportunity to cross the Snake River without getting wet.  The nearest bridge is about 4 miles downstream at Walter’s Ferry.

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Day 1 • Sept 3, 2016 •  Boise to Celebration Park •  42 miles

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