Cooper Lake

When I was three weeks out from busting my ribs, the healing really seemed to have stalled out. For the past week, I hadn't noticed any improvement in how I felt, how much Ibuprofin I needed, what I could do during the day, or how well I could sleep. I'd been able to hike, but riding the bike really sucked, and I'd been able to do a pull-up or two, but only very carefully. Anything else seemed completely out of the question.

That morning, I gave my morning workout a try though, and to my surprise, was able to do various pull-ups, push-ups, and leg lifts without any additional pain. I didn't want to push it though, so I only did half my normal routine, but it made me really happy, and that afternoon I figured I'd see if I could do a little rougher hiking than I had been doing.

At Heritage, if you go right at the dumpster, instead of left, you can go under the bridge and run around on some trails behind Cooper Lake. There are various right-of-ways back in there, that I explored on my bike once, but I'd seen some trais too, and figured I'd see where they went.

Turns out they mainly lead over toward Cooper Lake proper.

There was apparently a house back here at one point.

Or at least a blockhouse of some kind.

I eventually ended up on what appeared to be a fishing trail around the back of Cooper Lake itself.

In one direction, it led past the dam...

...and eventually ended about halfway up someone's driveway. The street dead-ends at the woods there, so you'd think that the trail would go to the end of the street, but it doesn't, it goes directly into someone's yard. You'd have to walk up their driveway and cross like 5 feet of their grass to get onto it.

In the other direction, it led around the lake, behind the neighborhood pool, and eventually became so choked with deadfall that I didn't continue following it. I've got some friends that live next to a little wooded patch in the neighborhood there, and there's a trail through that. My guess is that if I pushed through the deadfall, it would lead to that same trail, but I wasn't in any shape to go climbing over deadfall at the time.

On the way back, I went a slightly different way and found this old fire hydrant out there.

I know that Cooper Lake Road once crossed the railroad tracks where the northern section of North Cooper Lake Road now ends, continued through what is now that neighborhood, wound around the lake, somehow, then joined what is now the southern section of North Cooper Lake Road. I have a map that shows that. I'll have to see if I can correlate it with the roadbed that I found that fire hydrant on.

I felt kind-of ok after that bit of Adventure. Ribs were no worse after that than they'd been after lighter hiking. So, progress, maybe?

No progress yet, at that point, on the sleep front, though. Sleep had been equally awful, and the accumlated lack of it was horrible. There were times, every day where I just couldn't think straight. It made me feel insane. I just had to sit on the couch, doing nothing, until I felt recovered, and try again.

Just horrible.