Heritage Park

When breaking a rib, you usually turn the corner about 1 week out. It's then that you can finally lie down in some position and get actual sleep, for hours and hours at a time, rather than 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, sitting up the whole time, or worse, leaning forward on a TV tray with a pillow on it.

I got busted up on Sunday, and, to my surprise, turned that corner on Wednesday. I could also shift around, and get up and down comfortably. I was optimistic. It could be a short recovery.

A week out, I felt good enough to do some light hiking, so I headed over to Heritage Park.

It felt weird not running, I usually run there, but it also felt good not to jostle my busted parts all around.

It's really getting to be spring these days, and there was a good bit of spring happening at Heritage.

IDK what these flowers are, but there were a million of them, and they were beautiful.

I do know what this is though, Red Buckeye:

I've got a couple of friends who went to Ohio State, and I thought of them immediately. I send that photo to one of their wives and was like "Ask your husband if he knows what this is. He might..." She was probably like "WTF?" and might think I'm crazy now. Whatever... I promise it's perfectly innocent!

A while back, a friend asked me if there's anything at Heritage other than the Woolen Mill and Ruff's Mill. In fact, there is. I'd seen various things, but never gotten photos of any of them. There's a retaining wall on the other side of the creek. There are various old roadbeds leading up into what are now people's backyards over there too. There are various artifically leveled spots where maybe there used to be structures... That kind of stuff. I figured I'd keep an eye out for any of that this time.

First thing I saw was a piece of wood in the creek, with big nails sticking out of it.

Hard to say of that's old though. I've seen various, similar boards in creeks up in the mountains, that must have come down from some structure upstream. Whatever it came from must have been there a long time ago, because it's been National Forest for like 100 years. But, that's up in the mountains. This board could be old, or it could just be something that washed down from somebody's backyard. Who knows?

The bushes along the trail itself were just starting to leaf out.

I've been running there all winter, gotten used to the open woods, and it honestly made me a little claustrophobic.

Farther on, I saw another old chunk of wood, but this one was on the right side of the trail, opposite the creek.

This had a better chance of being super old, but really, there are various pavilions and bridges along the trail, and a long section of it is bordered with 8x8's. There was nothing in that immediate vicinity, but... Eh. It could be chunk of soemthing modern that someone just chucked into the woods.

So, nothing really interesting yet.

I'm always on the lookout for "organized rocks" though, and ha! Organized Rocks:

They turned out to be the back wall of a basement. There must have been a structure here at some point - maybe 16x20. No idea what it was for, except probably storage of some kind - I didn't see any sign of a chimney.

Almost directly across the creek was that retaining wall.

Definitely old. I want to say there's an old roadbed leading up the hill over there too, but I didn't get a photo of it. My guess is that there was a house over there, up on the hill, and there was some structure down near the creek associated with it. There might have been a bridge or ford nearby at some point too. These structures are always a little enigmatic though. There's rarely enough context to understand them.

Farther on, I noticed this super hacked up tree.

Not sure what that's all about.

Just past the new road that was cut to get in the support beams for the mill, there was an artificially leveled spot.

It featured a single stone, kind of in the middle, and at first it struck me as being a headstone. I've seen lots of small family cemeteries right up by the road, just like that, up in North Georgia. Many with similarly nondescript headstones. At first, it looked like it might even have writing scratched into it.

But, closer up, I couldn't make anything out, and it looked more like an optical illusion. Just the way that plant grows.

IDK, might still be a headstone though.

Farther up lay the old Woolen Mill itself.

I'd never looked closely at the map before, so I took a look at it this time.

I recognized everything on it except for the Supervisor's House Ruins. I wouldn't have enough time to find it that day, but I figured I'd come back soon and look for it.

There were more organized rocks just past the mill, on the uphill side...

...and another artificially leveled area, but I couldn't discern the purpose of any of it.

Farther up still lay Ruff's Mill...

...with its strange 180-degree-turn raceway.

I honestly don't understand that raceway. It looks like water was fed in from the top, and had to make a 180 degree turn to run the wheel. This part of the raceway was built into the foundation of the mill, but the top of it is nowhere near the creek. There must have been a long flume leading to it from way upstream, but I can't find any remaining evidence of it. Maybe it was entirely wooden?

The wheel mounts were pretty clear.

But... the wheel must not have been mounted directly to the stone. It must have sat up on pillars, or the shaft wouldn't clear the rest of the raceway. Also, did it enter the mill at that hole in the side, or is that hole just the result of people trying to get inside. If it didn't enter there though, then I don't see where it could have. Again, without context, it's difficult to figure some of this stuff out.

There was also a gusseted piece of metal just lying nearby:

Is that the axle? I've seen another metal thing, that exact shape somewhere else. Maybe at the Lewis Furnace? IDK, it's familiar.

That was it for that day. I had to move to get out before dark, and there was a cacophony of frogs on the way out.

I ended up coming back the next day though, and went looking for the Supervisor's House.

Just uphill from the warehouse, I found some organized rocks.

Not sure what they were, exactly, but these looked like collapsed footings.

It turned out that none of that was the house though. Off to the right, there was a white-blazed path that led down to a small feeder creek and then up the next hill. It roughtly followed an old roadbed, and looked semi-official.

At the top of the hill were the ruins I was looking for.

It looked like someone had built a fire in the fireplace and primitive-camped up against it during the winter. I've wanted to do something like that at one of the various intact North Georgia chimneys, but never got around to it this past winter. I guess it'll still be cold enough in the evening for a while though.

There's a well on the property too.

Good it's fenced off. That would be awful to fall into.

There were a bunch of deer running around while I was exploring the area. One of them was completely ambivalent to me.

I found another old chunk of wood in the area too.

Again though, it could be modern. Somebody could have just chucked it back into the woods.

It turns out that on the other side of the kiosk, basically on the back of the map, there are a bunch of old newspaper articles about the mills, and even a photo of the house.

It was a pretty satifsying couple of outings. I'd discovered some cool stuff, and shaken the ribs out pretty well.

The next day, I rode my bike around the neightborhood, and the following day, rode down to the Silver Comet, out a bit, and back. The next few days it rained, but yesterday I went out for another hike at Heritage. My ribs are definitely getting better. They feel ok, but not good. I've also had this weird thing that I've never had before, where if I get in certain positions, my intercostal muscles slowly cramp up. I can feel it happen and just have to switch positions, but it often happens when I'm lying down, trying to get comfortable to sleep, or if I move around in my sleep. Waking up to your entire left side cramping is unpleasant. Hopefully that'll subside in a few more days. They actually feel better when I'm moving than sitting around, but modern life involves a lot of sitting around.

Speaking of which, I've been sitting around typing this for far too long. Time to move around a bit.