Northwest Passages III

Northwest Passages III

Canyonlands 
With the eastern morning light filtering over the red sandstone bluffs, I opened my eyes and began to search for some footwear.  I headed down the hill to the one and only water spigot in camp and washed my face and pate in the bracingly cool fluid.  Ah! I am now really awake.  Feels good.  There are still a few low-lying gray clouds drifting above the plateau and brushing the tops of deep blue peaks in the middle distance.  Otherwise, is is mostly sunny and warming, with just a damp ground and the expected wetness clinging in places to the tent and on the old canvas ground cloth.  It is a luxury to let all the gear dry in the rising sun, a luxury that I can not afford today, as we need to pack and get up to Boise, Idaho where we will overnight with my sister and her family.  I tell my awakening family that once we are loaded up, we will have pancakes for breakfast in Moab, about 30 miles up the road.

As each member of the clan is rolling sleeping bags, deflating air mattresses, packing boxes or disassembling the tent that was so puzzling to construct just the night before; I now found it was way easier to take this simple structure down that to put it up, road-weary, in the dark and under precipitating skies.  A new day, a new start and things were going well.  With just about all our stuff stuffed back into The Q, Grant asked about what was down the road from Wind Whistle Campground.  I said that I had never gone beyond this camp, but this very turnoff was labeled on the maps as Canyonlands National Park "Needles Overlook" and there was another sign that said "Great Anticline".  Grant said, maybe, since you are a geologist, you should have seen those sights by now, you know, "enjoy the journey" - as you say.  I said to him, if you are ready for a journey that is a bit more free-ranging than usual, I will take up your challenge and we will all go see the Needles.  Of course, that means the pancake breakfast will be delayed.  Grant was again enjoying prodding me into doing a bit of geologic gandering, and I was glad to be pushed by him in this off-the-path bit of exploration.  The pavement soon gave out, and I flipped The Q into 4WD and kicked up a trailing dust cloud as we cruised toward the rim of Canyonlands NP.



Overland to the Overlook
Weathered Juniper Tree Fiercely Standing Watch



Overland to the Overlook - Blue Sky Red Rock Green Earth





Overland to the Overlook
Shelter from the Storm

We find numerous lizards waiting to host us as we scramble over the flat top outcrops to get a view of the canyon below.  In places there is a substantial railing and fence to keep fools from rushing to their deaths by toppling over the rim, while in other places a few strands of wire lazily warning that perhaps one should not venture too far past to get that great photograph.  We pose for a few shots on the red earth beneath a blue sky.

Mark lives life on the edge

Grant holds onto Mom to keep her from dangling foolishly over the cliff



High Above The Needles
Canyonlands National Park



Basking Son and Wife

Grant informs me of the new must-do pose, called "planking" where one stiffens and lies on your belly for a picture.  If only I was on face book, I would be exposed to the latest hip stuff.  Alas, I am not on facebook, so I have to be taught.  Grant shows me how one is to "plank":

I tell Grant, "Hold it, don't move a muscle... I am almost ready,
No wait - don't move, I am about to take the photo. Keep still.
 Note the smile (or is it a grimace on his face as I tease him)

We leave the Needles Overlook area and decide to drive another 13 miles at the Y to go see the "Great Anticline".  It is definitely anticline, but whether it is great or not was debated as we drove back to the highway.  Those who make their living can appreciate geologic structure, others think geologic structures such as an anticline are maybe not so "great".



The Great Anticline, Canyonlands National Park

By the time we finished our back country adventures, our pancake breakfast had become a pancake brunch in Moab.  We washed up a bit in the Pancake Haus restroom, and called ahead to sister Sheri in Idaho to tell her we would be arriving a little later than planned.  She is very accommodating, and we thank her for that.

Dinner was waiting for us when we got to Sheri & Tony's house, and what a place setting it was.  In honor of the success of my North Sean #2 oil well [see Blog: Smarter than a Rock], Sheri can constructed a centerpiece of with black crepe paper simulating oil gushing over a drilling derrick, and everyone had a little plastic dinosaur at their place, and the table cloth was black as pool of West Texas Crude.

Our visit with Sheri, Tony and Daniel was brief, as we were back on the road the next morning on our way to Eugene, Oregon to spend a few days with Inga.

Northwest Passages II

Northwest Passages II

Wind Whistle Camp
Leaving the locked gate at Four Corners Monument behind, we quickly passed from New Mexico into Arizona and then north to Utah, where we planned to make camp at the BLM's Wind Whistle campground.  As we drove northward, I could see that the thunder storm was moving north with us, but most of the lightning was to our west and hopefully would be passing northeast of us as we set up camp around 10 PM.

I often make the stop at Wind Whistle, one of my favorite overnight campsites.  It has running water and is tucked intimately among rounded, sensuous Mesozoic sandstones that are rich in warm hues of oranges, ochres and oxides that leave wildcat-like marks striping their flanks.  These intense colors can all be seen when we rise with the sun in the morning.  But for now, it is dark and drizzly when we turn off the highway and drive 6 miles back to the now, familiar campground.  I've been to Wind Whistle when it was packed with RV's and I've been camping all alone under the desert moon here also.  I prefer to have it to myself, but just as long as there is a space for my ground cloth and sleeping bag, I'll be pleased.  Tonight, there is only one other site occupied, from appearances and a bit of long-distance eve's dropping, our neighbors for the night are from Japan and Germany.  An unexpected combination of bedfellows in the Utah desert, but all are welcome.

View from Wind Whistle Camp of  Sensuous
Mesozoic Sandstone cropping out from the Desert Floor

I select a campsite up close to the cliffs on high ground.  I aim the car's headlights into the camp to afford some light on the site we will be pitching the tent.  There is a light rain falling, but after a summer of wilting heat in Dallas, I can live with change in atmospherics.  Grant is assigned to inflate the two air mattresses while husband and wife set to erecting the tent under the precipitous skies. 

This is embarrassing.  I have set this tent up a dozen times before, and half of those times in the dark, yet tonight, this seemingly simple task of connecting the rods into two long poles and inserting them through the tent sleeves in an "X" pattern does not go smoothly.  For Pete's sake, it is only two poles of equal size, but once assembled, Sue says this does not look right.  I want to say, "Well, what other possible combination is there?"  But, I have to agree, it does not look right and I do not know why.  We disassemble the poles, ask Grant to shine the flashlight on particular parts of the nylon fabric and we again go through the steps to set up our shelter for a night out of the rain (I hope, I hope).  By 11 PM, it finally looks right.  The fiberglass poles are arched and positioned into their pin-sockets, the rain fly is attached and it is past time to move in the air mattresses, sleeping bags and get some rest.

Ready for some sound sleep with rain-cooled temperatures, far off lightning gently illuminating the interior of the tent, but no thunder can be heard.  Only the slight rustle of the fabric in the breeze and the gentle plinking of small drops of rain interrupt the silence of a desert night.  Except that other strange effect of the breeze on the rain fly that sounds just like someone walking next to our tent; the sound of boots slowly taking steps on crunching gravel.  Tucked inside our bags, we all hear it.  Grant finally gets the nerve to ask, "What is that sound?  It sounds like somebody is walking outside our tent." 
"Well", I answer in a hushed, matter-of-fact, yet with an ominous under tone, "There are the old tales of a crazy lady, dressed all in white, who lives in these desert canyons and wanders through the desert on nights when there are thunder storms.  It is said that her victims car hear her sharpening her axe on the rocks, just before she walks into their camp and ..."
"Oh Shut Up", groans the woman lying next to me.  End of story.  At least that one.

I go on to tell the family another, and lighter story from my undergrad days camping with my geology department.  Speaking of strange noises outside one's tent --
Once, we had a January field trip scheduled for the Transverse Range in Ventura County, California, and the rain had turned into snow (yes, in southern California).  One of the Geology Department vehicles had gotten stuck in a muddy pothole on a Forest Service dirt [mud] road as we were heading to the camp late at night.  We all got out to push from the side and rear of the vehicle get it out of the mud hole.  All of us except a foreign student named Frank form Nigeria.  Frank got out of the vehicle but immediately went over to lean against the tree to watch us work in the snow and mud. 
   "Hey, Frank, come on over and help get this moving." 
   Frank's response was to fold his arms and tell us all, "In my country, I am prince." 
   Of course, someone mockingly said, "Well then, Prince Frank, in my country when we need to get the supplies into camp, everyone that hopes to eat breakfast in the morning needs to help make sure we all get to camp with all of our gear." 
   Frank insisted, "I am prince and do not do dat work."
   To which someone chimed in, "In America, we have a saying, 'Get your fat royal ass over here if you hope to avoid a royal pain in your royal ass.'"  Which got everyone laughing (except Frank) just as the rear tires caught hold of a less slick spot and propelled the vehicle back onto the road.

As a very late, but hot and satisfying dinner was being finished by everyone in snow camp, including Frank, a flurry of snowballs pummeled Frank.
   "Why da do you this thing to me?" shouted Frank, as he shook the powered snow from his jacket.
   "Oh Prince Frank, it is an honor we reserve in this country for all royal people among us once we have feasted on warm food after we all have worked so hard get all of our vehicles safely into camp.  You should consider the anointing by the white ball of coolness a great royal honor."

By morning, the sun was out, the storm had passed, and all of us geologist were getting ready for breakfast before going into the field for some mapping assignments.  Yet, Frank remained enthroned within his royal tent.  Raymond, with the full attention of the rest of camp focused upon him, picked up a hand of dry sand and walked over to Frank's still occupied tent.  With the morning sun casting a silhouette of Raymond posing as if he were urinating on Frank's tent, he then slowly let the sand particles drop from his hand onto the nylon, making a sound as if Ray was peeing on the tent.
   Prince Frank bolted upright inside and demanded, "Wat you do out there! Who do this!?  You can not do dat to me!  I will make a report of you to the Dean.  You not do this thing!"
At this point several others joined in the shadow theater for everyone's entertainment at Frank's expense.       They answer, "Frank, we are doing this to protect your tent from poisonous ice snakes that come out after a snow storm and crawl into tents seeking the warmth of an African summer.  The only thing that will keep you safe from the deadly ice snake is for us to put a pee perimeter around your royal tent/"
   Frank was not buying the story, though he was deathly afraid of even garter snakes when encountered.  Frank again threatened to take up his treatment with the Dean.
   Someone then informed him that he was lucky that they were not doing #2 on his tent to keep the dangerous poo-bears away from him. 
   Much laughter then in the Transverse Range, and good laughter again among the three of us after I finished my story at Wind Whistle.

Speaking for myself, I slept so very well that night.  And I don't think the Insane Lady in White bothered anybody with her axe that night either.

Grant awakes, having survived a thunderstorm and avoided being chopped to pieces by the Insane Lady in White.  It was a good night for everyone.

Northwest Passages I

Come the end of July the forecast was for more earth-buckling heat, the same as it had been for weeks around here, only the coming week it was going to be even hotter.  Time to leave town.

Several things on the itinerary, including go where it is cooler, maybe see some rain (which we had not seen for months here in Texas), stop by to see daughter Inga in her new digs in Eugene, Oregon where she is entering her Junior year at the University of Oregon.  Then we were to continue on up to Western Washington to join with the other six Cook Clan siblings + families in early August to place some closure on the passing of Sue's father who passed away on New year's Day this year.  Thrown into the trail mix were opportunities to visit my sister in Idaho and parents in Montana before returning to Dallas for a day of rest and then taking Grant to the University of Missouri to move him into his dorm for his freshman year.

Northwest Passages I
Garland to Wichita Falls -- We've done this before.  Not a lot of preparation needed for our passage to the Northwest, just pack a few clothes, a little bit of camping gear and a car-jack phone charger and we are off.  We leave town Friday afternoon with just a short trip to Wichita Falls where we enjoy the hospitality of Sue's brother Bill and his wife, Susan.  Wichita Falls is less than 150 miles from home, but it affords us a chance to get a leg up and launch our major westward driving without having to squeeze and grind through Metroplex traffic at the start of a big day.  We have dinner with the Texas Cooks, catch up on family and life events, say good night and retire to the master bedroom that has been graciously given up for our comfort.  Up decently early the next morning, shower and pack for the longest driving day of them all - destination Utah.

As we pack, my wife notices that, "Hey, what a coincidence, my sister-in-law has the very same hairbrush that I do."  Later that night, "Hey, has anybody seen my hairbrush?"  "What, the one that looks just like the one Susan has in her bathroom back in Wichita Falls?"  It is an Ah-Ha moment.  Maybe we did get up just a tad too early.  Oh well, nothing a trip to Wal*Mart can't fix to replace the hairbrush left behind.

We see miles and miles of Texas.  We drive pass the Cadillac Ranch west of Amarillo where half-a-dozen vintage Cadillacs are buried at a 30 degree angle, grill first, into the red earth of the Texas panhandle. 
This is art - or so I am told. 

Always a group of people stopped along the I-40 interstate to mosey on out to see and photograph the strange crop. There are mysteries on the plains, Stonehenge and Cadillac Ranch. It is a good thing to salt the mysterious and unexpected amidst the monotony.  I applaud planting cadillacs with King Cotton.

Four Corners -- Aware of the subtle changing topography, we drop off the Llano Estacado (Staked Plain of the early Spanish Explorers) and into the rifted basins of New Mexico, identified by the transformed geology, where jet-black volcanic basalts are now appearing off the shoulder of the highway.  We gratefully gain an hour as we reset the car clock to Mountain Time.  It is also lunch time as we drive off I-40 and onto the by-passed main street of Tucumcari. The majority of the buildings are dust-blown, abandoned hulks of pre-Interstate commerce serving the traveling public, presumably heading west after the war.  It is the old Route 66, with dilapidated motor hotels and diners and now failed businesses often with architecture rendered in a Western and Indian theme that was once so exotic and fascinating for the newly mobile US population in the 1950's and 60's.  Grant says he is sad to see a town look like this, largely by-passed and left behind, and would be happy to have Tucumcari in our rear-view mirror.  Sentiments obviously shared by many others.  But, in honor of the faded glory of what we once thought the American West to be, we stop and buy lunch at a long established diner.  I eat their chicken-fried steak, and they take my plastic dollars.  I wish them well and hope they are still holding down the fort the next time my wagon train travels through.

We zip across the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, going further into the desert where Indian Nations have set up blazing beacons of flashing mammoth signals in gaudy colors, imploring the those with a weak wallet to stop in an try their luck at the "loosest slots on earth".  The house always wins.  The advice given to those early pioneers traveling through Apache country on the Santa Fe Trail still applies: Hang onto your scalp.

We cut off the interstate and head north toward the magnificent Ship Rock as the sun sits low on the horizon. 


We catch some rain, part of the summer storm systems that have continually skirted around the high pressure system that has been sitting over Dallas all summer, making it a wet summer for everyone but Texas.  It is right to see rain and lightning over the desert, though this is a camping night, which could make things interesting.  We are now navigating across small, two-lane state highways, bobbing and weaving to get to our camp in southeastern Utah.  I mention to Grant that this is the "Four Corners" region, the only place in the US where 4 state are contiguously joined, and that there is a marker where you can get down on all fours and be in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah at the same instant.  Grant asks, have you ever done that?  I say, no - I am usually in a hurry to get somewhere and have never been to the exact four corners spot.  Grant suggests (with a deserved dig at my philosophy); why don't we go there now?  You know, "Enjoy the journey", right Dad?  Touche.  It is time for this kid to leave home, he knows too well how to get to me.

I might as well have been a third grader on the playground who had just been double-dogged dared.  I had no choice but to ask my wife for the quickest route to the Four Corners Monument.  I am crestfallen to see the rangers swinging the gate to the Four Corners Visitors Center to the locked position.  As they lock the gate, the sign on the outside reads:  Monument Closes at 8 PM.  It was 8:00.  I am proud of Grant for the impromptu prod to go and see something new and distinctive.  I am sorry that it is true that "Timing is everything".  If I'd only listened to my mother who always told me to "drive fast and take chances", then maybe we could have gotten to the Four Corners before they closed.


Somebody who got into 4 Corners before the gate was locked

With our headlights on, we circled back to the highway and drive toward the mountain tops covered with roiling dark clouds, intermittently lit like Chinese lanterns by flashes of lightning.  The darkening sky spits, piddles and pours onto my windshield, but I roll down the side windows to deeply inhale the special smell of desert sage on a newly rain-wetted earth.  This primal scent is guaranteed to unweary the bones, settle the mind and cleanse the lungs.  An evening thunderstorm on the American Desert. Good Stuff.

I've Been Everywhere, Man!

Road trip! Or, Road trips! 
Makes me sorta wanna sing that ol' Johnny Cash song... Never mind. 
I'll just write about it rather than sing.

Big Spring to Eugene - what a scene
Make no mistake Big Lake, Silver Lake, Crater Lake - for Pete's sake
Ferry rides, Mountainsides, landslides, train station, Navajo reservation, salutations - what in tarnation?
Portland, overland, underhand, contraband, promised land - what part of "no" don't you understand?
Sterling City, Jeff City, step on the gas - gotta hurry, it's Missouri - Enjoy the Journey!
I've been everywhere man!

Oh, lordy! What a summer it has been.

By the numbers:
     10,550 Miles
     5 Road Trips over 47 Days (July 3rd to August 18th)
      489.2 Gallons of Gasoline at $1740.50

And I loved every mile of it.

From Home Base,
     Trip 1: To Columbia MO via East Texas (See Summer Welcome blog) and back
     Trip 2: To Big Lake, Texas to sit the North Sean '29' #2 Well (See Smarter than a Rock blog)
     Trip 3: Back to the well for the running of electric logs on the Rocker b Ranch
     Trip 4: To Canyon Lands National Park, Moab, UT, Boise, Idaho, Eugene, Oregon, La Conner and Anacortes, Washington, back to Idaho, Polson, Montana, Denver and back home (See Northwest Passages I - VII)
     Trip 5: Freshman Dorm Move-In, Univ of Missouri and home via Mansfield, MO home of the Little House on the Prairie author, Laura Engels Wilder. (See Empty Nest)

Travel diary and photos to follow in coming blogs.

Smarter than a Rock

It's been a long time coming.  Perhaps the crude is only sweeter for waiting.

I like to tell people "I have a master's degree in coloring".  Not exactly true.  But as a one-man geology shop selling oil well drilling deals, I do take pride in my aesthetically balanced, color-rich maps and cross sections; it just seems that colored patterns meet the eye so much more easily, allowing the mind of the client to readily gain comfort with complex geology 2 miles below the mesquite brush roots of West Texas.  Resplendent with color and sensuous contour lines defining the subsurface target, North Sean was a handsome oil prospect.  We had this deal sold some years ago, it was deemed the best of the nine prospects my partner and I had to offer.  We negotiated terms, but as the price of steel used for drilling and completing the well rose (commensurate with oil prices I might add), he backed out saying it was now too expensive to drill to 10,200 feet.

Another company took the deal, but then got busy with another massive drilling project an let this one languish until our lease was about to expire.  We renewed the lease under the Rocker b Ranch, but could not get anyone to take the deal, despite rigorous science and good economics, not to mention beutiful maps.

With our mineral lease days away from expiring for the second time, we could see no sales on the horizon to come to our rescue.  Out in Midland, my partner was about to drop the Sean Prospect as lost, what more could be done?  But when buying a smoothie, he though of one final possible buyer.  Mr. S liked the deal, wanted a big piece and said he was sure he could find a few more buyers at the prospect expo coming up in Houston.  He was sure right.  After years and years of no interest, once Mr. S got involved, that Sean Prospect was 100% sold in a matter of days.  We even had people calling and begging to get a piece of this deal they had heard about.  Where were they the last 3 years?  Strange business.

We got the rig moved in, and immediately started off drilling a crooked hole - not good.  The driller thinks they hit a shallow fault that caused the bit to deviate.  Eventually, they had to come way back up the hole and start all over again.  Time is money.

Drilling North Sean Prospect
Are You Smarter than the Rocks?

  I had my bags packed and once the bit was about 1,000 feet from our objective, I headed west on a 6 hour drive to "sit the well".  Once on location, I am watching the time it takes to drill a foot of rock, and I am looking over the lithology of the "cuttings" coming up from the bottom of the hole to estimate where the bit is in the geologic column of various stratified rock formations.  Drill time and rock type identified under a microscope offer clues as to what type and age of rock we are currently drilling. Sometimes it is not so easy to know how close one is to the pay zone, even when comparing drill rates and cutting lithology to nearby wells.  The science has been done, now when it really counts it mostly comes down to a nebulous knack, an inexact art.  This latter stage of impressions, hunches and weighted comparisons is what I truly love about being an exploration geologist.  And probably explains why I am not a hard numbers equation engineer type; I can live with ambiguity.  Nothing quickens the senses more than anticipating drilling into a pay zone with just a few more turns of the drill bit.  Did I correctly map it? Have I thought of everything? Or have we just spent a million bucks for a deep hole in the ground?  Of course I always think we will find oil - but admittedly, at times I have been wrong.  Duster.  Bummer.

Based on where I have mapped the rock formations 10,000 feet below, we get to the expected depth of the pay zone, yet the bit still grinds slowly on down at about 5-6 minutes per foot, no sign of a "drilling break" where the porous rock (hopefully trapping oil in the pore space) would drill faster, at around 1-2 minutes per foot.  The intensity increases as all eyes of the investors are on the geolograph to look for our first "quick foot".  Every minute that passes, the pressure grows, dry hole or oil well; no way to know if you've done your geology and geophysics right until the drill bit gets there.  Theories, maps, 3D seismic and high probability of success are all just dandy - but at the end of the day if you can't poke it with a sharp stick, you ain't got nothin'.

I am not too worried that my prediction of porosity did not come in exactly to the foot after drilling a 2 mile hole, but I am thinking I sure need to see some evidence pretty soon.

Work on the rig goes on 24 Hours a Day

Like a seance, we all gather with intense emotions awaiting the tell tale sign from the nether regions of the far below the earth, places that have not seen the light of day since the Silurian Period, 300 million years ago.  Oh mysterious earth, is there oil beneath our feet?  What is the answer, be it yes or nay?  Then it comes - the bit cuts into dolomite porosity, the sounds from the rig floor indicates the drill bit is cutting faster than normal, the computer monitor inside the trailer shows we have suddenly gone from 6 min/ft to 2 min/ft.  It's breaking!  This is it!  Come on baby!

I make sure this is not a false alarm.  I wait to see if we have at least 8 feet of continuous break.  It looks pretty good.  And according to our drilling plan, we only want to drill into the top of the pay zone rather than risk drilling into any water below the oil, which would hamper the recovery of oil.  We stop drilling and wait 40 minutes for the last cutting samples to be circulated up off the bottom of the hole and out onto the shale shaker, where they are collected and examined.  Good news.  The samples fluoresce under UV light, a sign of oil, and the rocks have nice looking porosity as would be expected.

The next step is to let the formation flow whatever fluids it has into the drill stem under controlled conditions and this will tell us if we have natural gas, oil, water or any combination of the three, and what kind of pressures exist within the reservoir.

Drilling for Oil in West Texas

The tester comes out and rigs up his equipment for the DST (Drill Stem Test); the definitive answer as to what we have drill into.  With the valves, chokes, tank and personnel in place we open up the formation to atmospheric conditions at the surface and let her flow.  After spending a million dollars, the first indications of the results come from nothing more sophisticated than a $1.25 rubber hose submerged in a 5 gallon bucket of water.  As fluid enters the drill pipe it forces the air in the pipe up and out of the well with pressure and through the little rubber hose on the rig floor.  Almost immediately, the air comes rushing out of the hose and begins blowing bubbles in the water bucket with strong action.  I am encouraged. 
Then after 15 minutes we get the odor of natural gas. I am very encouraged. 
At the end of the DST we have bright yellow, high quality oil flowing out of the well, through the pipes and into the test tank with a resounding roar.  I am more than very encouraged. 
It is the equivalent of a gusher.

Today I am feeling smarter than the rocks.  It is a good feeling!

A Good Day in the Oil Patch

DST Tank with Oil flowing from test