Dan and David,
I appreciate your answers, I used the dissolve tool on the contours and that solved the labeling problem.
As for the grid cells, I think by using "Spline by Barrier" it created those cells along the barrier. It is meant for lines inside the data and not as a "clipping" tool. I think that's the problem. I am going to use natural neighbor and then clip the raster to see if those same zig zags disappear.
Both your answers are correct and helped! But i can only mark one as "Correct". I guess my next question is when you have continuous numeric data such as Sub Surface values for a formation in a well...essentially the surface elevation - measured depth, what is the best gridding algorithm to use?
I'm tying to contstruct a "Smooth" surface below the surface of the earth. The topo tools don't work since they use the Hydrology tools, or use flow to construct valleys...
Thanks!