Heritage Park

A little more than 2 weeks out from breaking my ribs, I still wasn't up to much more than light hiking, so I went back to Heritage to look for some stuff that a buddy of mine, Jon, told me about, but that I'd never noticed myself.

I was primarily going to look at the Woolen Mill, but on the way I noticed this rock with tool marks on it.

Except that it's not a rock. It's a couple of bricks held together with concrete. The old road has a drainage line running under it these days, and there are raised manholes here and there along it. They're often constructed of brick and then covered in cement. This appeared to be a discarded chunk of one. Maybe one of them got busted up at some point and had to be repaired?

Whatever the case, this was modern.

When I got to the mill itself though, I found what my buddy had been talking about.

There was a wheel against the west side of the mill, fed by Nickajack Creek, via a raceway composed of underground pipes.

Some of the pipes are now exposed, but the majority are still buried.

There were various retaining walls near all of this as well.

And what might have been an axle, just sitting there, stuck in the ground, around where the wheel would have been.

The orientation of the pipes and the wheel were pretty confusing though. Jon had mentioned this too, but I didn't really understand until I got there. The race was really low, like right at the basement level. The wheel must have been undershot. But, the last bit of existing pipe was really close to the west wall of the mill, and very near to the center of it. I'd expect the wheel to have been parallel to the west wall of the building, with a shaft leading inside through the wall, but for that to have been the case, the water would have had to make a 90 degree turn to feed it, in like 3 feet. Jon speculated that maybe it was a turbine, but I didn't see enough room for that either. It's not impossible that the wheel was inside of the building itself, and that the raceway ran through the basement and out the other side. If that was the case though, no evidence of it remains.

It was weird and confusing, but then, so is the raceway at Ruff's Mill, and both were built by the same people, so maybe they were just showing off in both cases.

On the way back, I noticed this half-buried cable sticking out of the trail.

If I'd seen such a thing up in the mountains, I'd immediately think logging, but in an urban area... who knows?

The ribs were still quite busted, but weren't terribly unhappy with me jostling them around. I ended up going back the next day and doing a proper hike, cranking out miles, as opposed to just strolling around and looking at things, and it wasn't any worse.

The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me though. I remember that after you turn the corner, the lack of sleep is the worst part, but I forget the details, so here they are for future reference...

Ther was like one or two positions I could sleep in - on my right side in bed, or on my left side on the couch. I could fall asleep in those positions, but I'd end up moving in my sleep and after about an hour, I'd wake up in pain. I could sometimes get back in the same position and fall asleep again for another hour, but usually it just hurt and I'd have to get up and move to the couch (or to the bed if I was on the couch). Then I could sleep for another hour. I'd repeat this until morning for maybe 3 or 4 hours total each night. At a point I'd just have to get up and start my day. Then I'd be drowsy all day, and anything that didn't just require autopilot seemed like a huge mental effort. Around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I'd perk up a bit, do some excercise, and eat dinner. Then I'd be more productive for a few hours. I'd hate getting sleepy again though. I knew I needed sleep, but I also knew exactly what kind of suffering was coming.

"Maybe tonight it'll be better."

Every night.

Awful.