Wood's Prairie Travels

Posting blogs about our travels is a bit deceptive. Although our posts show pictures of pretty places or interesting locations, it’s “not all peaches and cream” as the saying goes. Every trip has its challenges. During those difficult times we rarely get pictures because we are in the thick of figuring it out. For example, on this trip, when planning our direction of travel, a number of times there were weather warnings. We dodged “Winter Weather Advisory” warnings throughout Idaho and Utah. And then there was the “Severe Thunderstorm Advisory” when in the hill country of Texas. We talked to another traveler who had heard that there had been golf ball size hail in that particular storm. Well, that would have put a “dent” in our travels. There was also a “Tornado Warning” in east Texas, which we missed as we sat on the beach at Port Aransas. In both Texas and Nevada, when entering our destination in the truck’s nav system, we got the “Your route appears to take you into a flood adviso...

Traveling west out of Utah on “Scenic” Route 50 the clouds were so low at first that they touched the ground. However, as we began to climb the first pass of the day through the Confusion Mountain Range (love that name) snow covered mountains began to peak through the cloud cover. This mountain range was mainly layers of black basalt which were accentuated by the white snow pack. Seeing the dark jagged mountains was a change from the colored sedimentary mountains through which we have been traveling recently. Much more reminiscent of home in the northwest. The next few mountain ranges that we crossed to reach our destination outside of Eureka, Nevada, were back to the colorful sedimentary layers. However, that didn’t make them any lower in elevation. They too were covered with white mantles. There are numerous different mountain ranges in eastern Nevada which surprised us. A few that we crossed through were the Snake Range, Schell Creek Range, Eagan Range, and Pancake Range. Most...

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 perio...

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 c...