Winter to Spring: Utah to Texas and beyond - Arches, Mesa Verde, Big Bend National Parks, and the Creole Nature Trail

By Bob Campbell

Arches National Park in Utah. Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Big Bend National Park in Texas. Each packing a unique selling point: geologic wonders, archeological achievements, and a sprawling biosphere preserve of nature in untold proportions covering vast expanses awaiting discovery. As if that wasn't enough, we'd top it all off with the coastal swamps in the southwest corner of the Louisiana bayou catching the Creole Nature Trail Loop to hopefully push our 'critter count' of different species we'd see along the trip far into triple digits, with individual mammal, reptile, bird, bug, and spider counts into multitudes with no meaning.
Along the way, it would entail traveling over 5,000 miles and covering the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
The journey was extensive, and along the way, we'd get to explore a diverse cast of characters: sunset at Utah Lake, UT; sunrise in Socorro, NM; the hidden governmental gem in downtown Marfa, TX; experience the mysterious Marfa Lights of Texas; an up-close and personal moment with the Rio Grande, less than a stone's toss from Mexico; walk along the frontier past in Fort Stockton, TX; spend a glorious number of days breaking culinary cultural bounds eating the foods of the South; an interlude into the lesser traveled paths of Bryan, TX, including a necessary dirt road to Campbells Creek. These would be the more normal Not Another Travel Guide points of interest, and bring the ultimate joys of the journey home. (Well, that and being able to cook the gals dinner while in Texas with my favorite uncle while watching the terror of my aunt as we took over her kitchen.)
Some high points just can't be translated into words - or pictures; but we'll do our best to deliver an experience worthy of any virtual vacation (and hopefully help you avoid any unnecessary trips going off to see what you think will be the marvels of the world, potentially missing the truly important diamonds in the rough just waiting to be discovered.)
Buckle up and get ready for a trip worthy of Not Another Travel Guide: High Octane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Campbell
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215176733

Bob Campbell

The short of it: over-educated, unemployed, and annoying with a camera. Quite possibly a dangerous combination.The long of it:I've been snapping pictures for over a quarter-of-a-century on equipment ranging from a Pentax k1000 to Canon SX700hs - but nothing fancier. In fact, after they retired my Kodachrome 64 film, I hung up the 'real cameras' and settled for "digital pocket snappers." It seems ninety percent of the challenge to taking pictures is to remember your camera (would seem obvious, wouldn't it? But look around at the folks with large, fancy cameras - no wonder they claim the phone-based lens will be the death of real photography). So I do my part and pack it almost everywhere.I was a latecomer to photography, though, so I had time to grow up in many different parts of the country with my formative stage in the South, but junior high and onward in the Pacific Northwest. The last set of initials after my name tacked on by the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine - making the 'highest degree attained' line of the survey read Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.I still live in the state of Washington with my lovely wife of over two decades who continues to be an invaluable accomplice. For any hazard I manage to avoid, our son does his best to ensure we'll see an early grave.Having spent a little time teaching, I've grown to miss a captive audience to inflict my photography upon, so thank you Smashwords for providing me a forum for dispersing my imagery pain to be loosed upon the world.

Book preview

Introduction

Winter to Spring: Not Another Travel Guide, High Octane

Not Another Travel Guide: High Octane...

What it means to you: this book will cover a lot of miles in a very short period of time. While we'll try to provide views and imagery around the Big Four -

- Arches National Park (UT) -

- Mesa Verde National Park (CO) -

- Big Bend National Park (TX) -

- Creole Nature Trail Loop (LA) -

... we'll also stray off course while dragging you along through a few states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Texas (it's a big state, we can list it twice), Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado ("Dude! Look, I think I see Colorado, like twice, man! Hey, don't bogart the doobie, dude, pass it back! I'll stop talking."), Nebraska, Wyoming, and then start backtracking through Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and finally back into Eastern Washington. Snapping pictures all along the way to force-feed them to an unsuspecting audience. (Along with prose like that endless run-on sentence / paragraph designed to let me write whatever the heck I want, no matter how honest, and still get away with it.)

This book is more about the images, providing you with a potential virtual vacation or trip to enjoy from the comfort of your own home, penitentiary cell, or office cubicle, just the same. It will hopefully allow you to relive the journey and focus less on any particular destination.

And for those of you stupid enough (I mean, so inclined) to make the same trip or venture into any of these major areas, it's designed to subtly* give a few words of caution concerning what you'll potentially really find when you enter the location we'll visit... not necessarily what you've been told, read on-line, sold by the travel agent, or watched on a video / DVD.

Having used up way more words and far too few pictures, it's time to get moving.

Buckle up and get ready for a 5,422.7 mile trip (give or take a quarter mile.)

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[ Introduction image information: 15:05P PST / 16:05P MST, March 5, 2023. West of Spanish Fork, Utah, headed toward Utah Lake looking north at the Wasatch Mountain Range that's just up the road from this little farm and cattle pen to the left of the image and fallow field to the right, on a side road because occasionally you just have to stop along the way and let the destination wait a little bit longer. Sometimes the destination and best laid plans shouldn't really matter. ]

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( Please note that we'll start each chapter by listing what day of the journey we're on, then give a very brief rundown of where our travels will take us that day, in order. Don't get confused, then, if you see Day 2: UT, Arches National Park, CO: that means we start in Utah, hit Arches National Park (in Utah), then end our day in Colorado. Additional subsections in each chapter will be chronologic / linear along our path of travels. )

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: Skip the footnotes to the first day : Table of Contents :

- - - -

* Subtle - like how I'll gently give a camera endorsement for the equipment used during this escapade. Which if you think endorsement doesn't belong in quotes, be sure to read the Epilogue when you get to the conclusion... at least if you have any lingering doubts about how I might really feel about my Sony DSC-HX80 digital unch / basura camera, which I would highly recommend extending my endorsement to potentially encompass all Sony digital cameras. [Conflict of interest statement (which, after you've read the book, read that again and you might understand how being conflicted can be seen in two different ways in this instance): I do own a few shares of Sony, Inc. (SNE/SONY) common stock. My comments should in no way be viewed as anything other than an actual Sony digital camera user, and certainly should not be viewed as a recommendation to purchase a Sony digital camera. Even if saying you shouldn't get a Sony digital camera goes against the stock making a profit. - Yes, Subtle like gentle, lead-infused palm leaves falling from steel trees onto a flight deck. {Return}

Day 1: WA, OR, ID, UT

Washington to Oregon

Having left Pasco, Washington earlier this morning (if earlier you might mean 02:36AM PST), the sun has finally decided to suggest it might join us in a bit now that we're south of Pleasant Valley (hold your judgments about pleasant until you hear the temperature) and approaching the Cement Plant near Durkee, Oregon. We made it over our early problem area, Deadman Pass without incident, although it's been a little cool, including the Pass's rest area where we stopped for a rest and to check out the 13°F weather with snow all around. Now in Pleasant Valley it's a balmy low twenties over on this side of the hill as we await the rest of sunrise while hauling down the highway. Our winter to spring adventure has more than officially begun, it's making a significant point to emphasize the winter part of the book title. [March 5, 2023, Pleasant Valley, OR, I-84 eastbound]

Trucking right along, we've hit the next rest area just across the border into Idaho on Interstate 84 near Fruitland, Idaho, our typical stop. Although we actually made somewhat slower time than usual over the Blue Mountains and Deadman Pass due to prudence and caution (a fancy way to say, Freezing temperatures, snow, slush, ice, tight corners and traveling significantly under the speed limit.) But our big adventure is underway to seek out spring, warmer temperatures, and catch sight of lots of critters as we make our way from Arches (UT) to Mesa Verde (CO) to Big Bend National Parks (TX), with a capping-off jaunt doing the Creole Nature Trail in Louisiana - has started out with a bang, practically at first viable light with a flock of turkeys here along the Snake River in Idaho. Not a bad way to get things rolling. We'll soon have to break out the pen and paper to keep track of all the animals, birds, and creatures we'll see along this trip. [06:28 AM PST / 07:28 AM MST - because we crossed over into the Mountain Time Zone a few miles back in Oregon just before the border.]

Snowville... and it certainly is. This has been the town I've been using for weeks to help monitor the best time (least amount of snow and projected bad weather) along with the city of Provo, Utah, to plan our departure time; because winter seems to want to linger throughout the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rocky Mountains... sometimes with a vengeance. But we've made it to Utah now, so it should be an easy glide down to where we'll bed down for the night down in Spanish Fork, only a hundred or two more miles to the south. [ 11:17 A PST / 12:17 P MST - local time, March 5, 2023, Snowville, Utah, Mile Post 6, I-84 southbound/eastbound.]

Utah Lake - Spanish Fork, Utah

Arriving at your destination after a little day of travel (twelve hours on the road), it makes sense to go for a drive once settled into the motel. Seeing a body of water to the west on the map, it's back in the car to head toward the setting sun from Spanish Fork, Utah and see what this Utah Lake is all about. Getting distracted by the mountains in the rearview mirror, a quick dodge off the road near a farm gets a better view back toward the towering peaks (Wasatch Range) where we'll be having to cross them tomorrow morning over Soldier Summit at Soldier Pass (seen in the image as the dip between tall mountains to the left of the frame)... which is only 7,477 feet (1.4 miles) up to get out of the cold and snow... into just cold on the other side. [15:05 P PST / 16:05 P MST, northwest of Payson / west of Spanish Fork, Utah.]

Fifteen minutes later, it's Lincoln Beach on Utah Lake where we get time to wander around in temperatures somewhat above freezing (or at least not as freezing as we've been driving through) for a blustery walk along the shores of the lake, disturbing various birds - but nothing too exotic, mostly red wing black birds, a couple nondescript ducks (because they were too far off when they flew to figure out what the heck they were), a pelican, and four Hell's Angels. Officially we decided we shouldn't really put these down on the official Winter to Spring Critter Count List, so we're still just stuck with some turkeys. Sort of fitting, though.

After an hour of walking around and poking up and down the shore, it's time to take leave of Utah Lake (which, unlike her bigger cousin to the north (the Great Salt Lake), doesn't brag with any grandiose words in her name, but she's actually a living lake with birds and fish and what appears to be a hugely active number of people fishing the shores.) The sun is setting rapidly to the west behind the nearby hills (behind us as we look back toward the Wasatch Range) under mostly clear... but growing ominously dark and cloudy in the distance, backing up and over the tops of the peaks that we're supposed to be crossing tomorrow morning.

Back at the motel room and turning in for the night, we make the mistake of watching the Weather Channel for the local forecast. Which seems to be getting worse with each update: a dusting of snow... one inch accumulation... one to four inches of accumulation by morning... four to six... and we figured we'd better turn off the TV before it got worse. [image 16:10 P PST / 17:10 P MST March 5, 2023 Utah Lake, near Spanish Fork, Utah. Having got enough bad news back at the motel room we're winding down for what we're hoping won't be that long of a long winter's nap: 18:36P MST. Yes, only six o'clock local time, but when you've been on the go since two in the morning, six o'clock comes awfully early. And we were hoping to get an early start the following morning to beat any worsening weather.]

Day 1:

705 miles

Four states: WA, OR, ID, UT.

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{Keep scrolling / turning pages to start Day 2} : Table of Contents :

Day 2: UT, Arches National Park, CO

Spanish Fork, Utah to Green River, Utah

We've been watching the snow out the motel window for the past three or four hours - at least when we could watch it come down, because a significant amount of time the snow was coming down hard and often times horizontal. The good sound as of late has been the nearly continuous sounds of snow plows and snow removal vehicles. Added bonus: the on-line Utah Department of Transportation web site is amazing... not just listing road conditions, but they have GPS tracking in all their snow plows, showing the route they've plowed over the past 30 minutes, including their current heading and location. We're watching all this with a keen eye on the road we're needing to take (Utah Highway 6 from Spanish Fork to Green River), but with minimal indications of improvement, which we combine that information with having a local morning news show on the TV so we can watch the mayhem and reports of snow (after such a wonderful previous day!) All this apparently par for the course for Utah. We opt to sit tight and not head out on an alternate route (one that would entail driving an additional hundred miles to avoid Highway 6, but allowing us to stay on the interstates.) Except we noticed several red areas on even those larger interstates on the UDOT live road condition map (sporting moderately smaller red road conditions than the huge sections of red on our Hwy 6 route) - but we continued watching and waiting, and hoping all those little 'plow truck' icons on the map were moving as fast as they seemed. Until all the multiple snow plows shown on our preferred route suddenly disappear and drop down to only three active plows. (Turns out this was good news and not just half of them going on break! Apparently they had been working extra hard considering when we finally did leave, the higher we got, the BETTER the roads had been cleared, even to the point of including huge swaths of tiny side roads along the highway.) [Image: 05:41A PST / 06:41A MST, March 6, 2023, Spanish Fork, Utah. As of March 2023, the Utah Department of Transportation web site: http://www.udottraffic.utah.gov/ ]

On the road and now past Moark Junction, it's a pleasant surprise to see completely cleared roads, even if everything off to the side of the road and up higher looks menacing and miserable. UDOT snow plows apparently mean serious business. In another fifteen minutes, we'll pass the Visitor's Center at Soldier Summit. Taking a quick literary time-jump to that point, we were making remarkably good time, even if we were being cautious plugging along at 50mph - occasionally tense with the continued small, icy pellets dropping nearly non-stop with temperatures in the twenties, occasionally with slush on the roads, but the semi-trucks were moving just as fast as us (sometimes faster as I followed one that really seemed to know the route blindfolded by his anticipated speed adjustments significantly before the 'curve' signs so he could just let his momentum carry him into the corner.) [Image 09:00A PST / 10:00A MST between Moark Junction and Soldier Pass, Utah.]

Completing our time jump to 'the other side,' we're coming up to the Carbon County rest area, between Wellington (Price / Spanish Fork side) and Woodside (Green River side) - easily showing the marked difference between the snowy, challenging west side of the mountains and the drier, almost no snow of the eastern side of the Wasatch Mountain Range. As the traffic cameras had been showing, if you can get to Helper / Price on Highway 6, it seems to clear nearly instantly for smooth sailing and much nicer weather (not at all looking like at any moment you'll be buried under a heavy snowfall.) As a side note, our Critter Count list just had a pronghorn antelope added: it was stuck out here on the highway side of the barriers and was somewhat frantically trying to find a section of fence that it could jump over to get back to the more pleasant / less road-confined side. (Not the Sony camera's fault there's no picture: I was worried the pronghorn might panic and head back out across the road, so I was actually paying attention to driving for once. Although the completely honest answer: with the critter counter being so low, both the co-pilot and I were mostly just watching him being this close proximity to the road.)

Arches National Park, Utah

An hour later, almost completely devoid of snow or even hints of snow (except the occasional splash of white in the shadows that's nearly been lost over the past sixty minutes), we're on final approach to Arches National Park's main (only) entrance out here in eastern Utah. [11:36A PST / 12:36P