Wood's Prairie Travels

About 230 million years ago much of the North American continent was covered with an inland sea. When the waters receded, they left behind thick layers of sand deposits. What followed was a period where the southwest became a desert with massive sand dunes. Eventually these dunes hardened into what is now know as the “De Chelly” (De-Shay) sandstone. Over time, rivers and streams carved a steep walled canyon through the De Chelly sandstone. The high walls became a preferred location for the Anasazi (the Navajo word for “The Ancient People”), People to build their homes and live their lives for about 2,000 years.   Archaeologists have excavated and studied the ruins to learn more about the culture of a people who apparently abandoned their homes by the 1300’s. The reason they left is still a mystery.   Most archaeologists believe that a change in the climate affected the amount of water for their crops which caused the Anasazi to relocate. The Earth has gone through periodic changes in

Often when we travel, we are surprised at the way the landscape quickly changes over a rather short period of time. One such drive on this trip was what is sometimes referred to as the Coronado Trail, highway 180, in southeast New Mexico. We headed out towards Silver City which we knew was in the mountains, but all we saw was flat desert. There was sage and cacti, but mountains? Maybe that smudge in the distance? Before long, the smudge changed into arid rolling hills. The vegetation changed too. There were larger bushes and some pinyon trees scattered amongst the sagebrush. Soon the road wound through those low hills and we glimpsed snow capped peaks off in the distance. Would we be going over those? The low hills gave way to higher mountains which had tall pine trees and warnings to watch for elk. As we dropped off the high summit on the trail, we did encounter a small herd of elk grazing near a mountain meadow. The dark green conifer forest was much thicker at that altitude. Aga

White Sands is the place they used to land the space shuttles, right? Well, yes, but it is so much more. We had heard about sand dunes there, but we were dismayed at what we found. Driving into the White Sands National Park in southern Neew Mexico we were astonished at just how white the sand was. It wasn’t a buff, gray, or light tan color. It was a blindingly bright white! Even with our sunglasses on, it was bright. It seemed like new snow on a bright sunshine day. The road into the park winds through and around these beautiful white dunes. There are parking lots for picnics, day hikes, and backcountry camping. Quite a few children had snow disks that apparently slide just as well on the sand dunes, as on snow. To judge by the laughter and shouts of glee, they were having a great time. We found our own area of the dunes to explore. The sand itself is the cleanest sand we’ve ever seen. It didn’t leave the residue or grit that you usually feel after holding sand. Also, we noticed

We travelled through the Capitan portion of the Sacramento Mountains of south central New Mexico on highway 380 in a westward direction. Eventually we crossed the Continental Divide not far from our camp at the little community of Capitan [note: This was where Smokey the Bear was rescued after a forest fire.] We woke to a nippy 37 degrees, but as we descended from the divide the temperature soon rose to a comfortable 67 degrees by the time we headed south on highway 54. Before we knew it we were at the turn for the Three Rivers Petroglyph National Recreation Site. The visitor center host provided information about the trail, the petroglyphs, and we were off to explore. The site is a small knoll with chunks of black basalt rock scattered all over it. This site was a small village of the Jornada Mogollan people who lived in this area from about 300 BC to 1450 AD. There are over 21,000 petroglyphs scattered around the site. It was like a treasure hunt to see if we could spot differe

H aving achieved our two primary goals for this trip, it was now time to turn the truck westward and begin our trek home. Our choice of road was to follow Hwy 70 which traverses almost all of Oklahoma. Although the interstate freeways are usually faster, we feel you miss some of the character of the land that you are driving across. Traveling from the eastern border to the western border over the course of a couple days, the changes in landscape was apparent. The eastern portion of the state had rolling hills and deciduous forests. As we travelled west, those hills leveled out until the land became flat open plains. The western portion of the state had many farms and ranches. Some extended as far as the eye could see.  Pat pointed out that the road was running perfectly straight in front of us to the horizon and when he  looked at the side mirrors, it was just as straight behind us.. It’s funny how you have an impression of a place based on movies or novels. That was the case for u

Our path led us through the northern portion of the Texas panhandle, and our destination was a state park called Caprock Canyon. However, as we drove we were traveling through an arid prairie with very few low hills, let alone a canyon. Even just five miles from where the GPS said we were headed the land was flat. Was there really going to be a canyon? Then, a couple of miles from the campground, we began to see some breaks in the ground where the erosion had exposed the red earth layers so often seen in the desert southwest. We turned in to the park entrance and approached the ranger station to be greeted by the view of a canyon wall in the distance. We were also surprised to see a small herd of bison grazing around the parking lot! Some of these woolly giants strolled amongst the parked vehicles to reach the grass on the other side. We had heard that the park was home to a herd of bison, but we didn’t think we would see them up close without even having to drive to another part

We travelled all of east Texas from the Gulf shore north through Texarkana to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, which was the second goal of this trip. It was such a different drive than heading south through flat and arid west Texas. East Texas was interesting in that we began to see more hills and much more vegetation. The further north we went the larger the trees became. Also, we crossed over many bayous. I had to look up the definition for bayou (slow moving water way that feeds a larger body of water) because they looked like muddy rivers or sloughs to us.   In addition, there was a noticeable difference too in the grocery stores that gave them a more cajun feel.   For example, the Walmart in Beaumont, TX, had display shelves of seasonings for shrimp and crawfish boils, gumbo, and jambalaya. They were at the entrance to the store, where in the northwest seasonal foods are displayed. And they had hand crank flour sifters, like my mom used to have, hanging on the e

We had many people tell us, “You have to try some Texas BBQ!” So we had been looking for a place to do so as we traversed back and forth across the state. There were many likely spots to try this mandatory food, but the times we saw them just didn’t coincide with a lunch or dinner time. Or we had just eaten elsewhere. But we kept looking. Finally, heading north in east Texas we found ourselves traveling through a town during lunch time. A quick Google search showed many likely places.  We opted to try Bodacious BBQ which was right on our way. Although it was after the usual lunch hour, there was still a line at the drive-up window. That seemed promising, even though the building itself didn’t look like much. When we went through the doors, the delicious smoky smell permeated the air. Several employees were quickly filling the orders for customers at both the counter and the drive-up window. There were cases and cases containing Bodacious Bar BQ packets of seasoning. Also, they ha

  We had not realised just how much of the Gulf of Mexico coast has barrier islands that lay just offshore. During this journey we travelled along several of them. Our initial encounter was to ride the ferry from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas on Mustang Island. They had 6 ferries that run around the clock. The boarding system was very efficient and just about twenty minutes after arriving at the mainland ferry landing, we were being offloaded on the island! It didn’t take us long to find a spot to park the camper and pull out our camp chairs. We spent the next few days on a white sand beach watching the sun rise over the Gulf (a novelty for us west coasters), savouring warm sunshine, taking some dips inthe 68 degree water, flying the stunt kites, and just relaxing from the rigors of traveling 😊 . The Port Aransas area is a lively tourist area. Most of the pastel rainbow-colored homes are built on stilts to prevent them from washing away in storms. While we were there the town was