A little assistance

Instead of us constantly taking over the thread of another person, I wanted to ask a few quick questions. In a previous thread, someone mentioned looking for Tulip Poplars. Being that i'm not really from here, and I'm not getting a good answer from Google. How does one identify a Tulip poplar, when there are no flowers, or leaves (green).
I have been out looking every evening since Monday, but have found nothing. I've found a few areas around the home. The first one is fairly similar to the last one i went to. It seems to be a flood plain in the woods. Last night, I found obvious signs that it had flooded over. All of the leaves were covered in mud residue. It was the same behind my house (public land area). My concern is that it may have been too wet? or jsut really poluted. The other area was a flood plain, and I found several areas of just hardwoods, bamboo thickets, and moist wet soil. The issue there was that the soil went from "dirt" to sand the closer to the creek I got. Was that a bad thing? Should I have kept going towards the creek? Is sand a good substrate for morels? I did see a lot of "Urnulas" popping up. Which, by the comments on another FB page, seems to be a sign before morels appear. Should I keep looking around there?

The second place i looked had a few open fields, pine areas, and several Hardwood only areas. They NCWRC had recently done a controlled burn around there though, so I didn't look all that hard through those areas. I hear that should be good in the next couple years though. Burning sounds good for future use.

Any assistance in this would be awesome. I'm just really enjoying the long walks after work, but I would like to have something to show for it.

I'm also looking at heading down to Uwharrie for some great hiking in the next two weeks. I'd like to go this weekend, but we are really busy with wedding planning.

Thank you all. Best of luck to everyone.