Carry Me

Reagan Tub Mill, Roaring Fork Brook, Smokies, TN. The old wooden sluice way diverts water from the brook to a tub mill just behind me--a small structure with a turbine and a wheel to grind corn. The mill and a two room house still remain on the abandoned Reagan homestead here in the park. It is Spring in the Great Smoky Mountains, and I find myself crawling on the Roaring Fork motor way, following the brook down the mountains and stopping at every other pull out to get down to streamside. I am lost in the work of it, caught up in the flow, fascinated by the falls and pools, and their course through boulders covered in every shade of green. And so the river has bounced and dipped it's way to this place, where some of it is bourne through this flume, overflowing and leaking it's load, a force that will power an engine and is still unstoppable enough to rejoin the brook a bit below. I let it carry me.

Add to Lightbox Download

Filename: Carry Me
Image Size: 2048x1371 / 3.6MB; Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains Tennessee TN Ray Palmer Ray Palmer Photography sluice flume sluice way Roaring Fork brook stream river Smokies spring water landscape landscape photography green Reagan Tub Mill Roaring Fork motor way
Contained in galleries: East/Northeast

Reagan Tub Mill, Roaring Fork Brook, Smokies, TN. The old wooden sluice way diverts water from the brook to a tub mill just behind me--a small structure with a turbine and a wheel to grind corn. The mill and a two room house still remain on the abandoned Reagan homestead here in the park. It is Spring in the Great Smoky Mountains, and I find myself crawling on the Roaring Fork motor way, following the brook down the mountains and stopping at every other pull out to get down to streamside. I am lost in the work of it, caught up in the flow, fascinated by the falls and pools, and their course through boulders covered in every shade of green. And so the river has bounced and dipped it's way to this place, where some of it is bourne through this flume, overflowing and leaking it's load, a force that will power an engine and is still unstoppable enough to rejoin the brook a bit below. I let it carry me.