Two dams in one day

Today's second outing started in Hickory Hill Park near my motel, but the trail that started promisingly with these asters was soon dominated by poison ivy and mosquitoes, in my perception at least. I beat a retreat and headed to...

Peninsula Park upriver from downtown. The centerpiece of this park is a huge dog park with fenced runs for small dogs and their owners, for middle-sized and large dogs, one with a pond for dogs that love water (and boy, did they ever!), and I don't know what the others specialized in. The staff person collecting the fees didn't know anything about the rest of the park but asked me to let her know what I found.

What I found was a bike/pedestrian bridge across another dam. The Iowa River Power Dam was built in 1844 to drive a flour mill, converted to electric power generation in the 1880s, and modernized, including addition of a fish ladder, in 1916. Eventually it was unable to keep up with growing demand; coal took its place in the 1960s but Iowa City wants to preserve the dam because the reservoir upstream feeds the deep aquifers that provide the city's water supply.

This dam, like the one at Coralville Lake, has an overflow spillway that was vigorously doing its job today. As I crossed the bridge just downstream from it I kept a cautious eye on the nearer of these two trees surrounded by the fast-rushing overflow. I could feel the bridge tremble with the impact of the water on some of its supports, and the railing of one section was heavily dented from above, no doubt by just such a tree not long ago. I learned that this section of the bridge is to be replaced - fine with me!