Angelica had to go on a field trip for her online biology class, so I tagged along with her to the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology (can you believe there is something with that sort of title in Hemet?).
While construction crews dug the Diamond Valley Reservoir, paleontologists worked frantically to preserve the layers of history they unearthed. According to one display, "Researchers recovered hundreds of thousands of fossils and artifacts—everything from ceramic fragments to mammoth tusks. The discoveries created a burning thirst for new knowledge—and a deep pool of objects that may require decades to drink in." I love it when scientists wax poetic.
We delighted in discovering the history that underlies our area, admiring the beads and pottery shards, detritus of someone else's everyday life. I have an affinity for mortar and pestle sets that dates back to an essay I wrote in third grade imagining my life as a Hopi child named Dancing Rain or something like that. I'm pretty sure that were I living at that time, grinding grain for meals would probably take up most of my day.
Part of the floor in the mastodon room was covered in glass with a recreated dig site you could walk over.
I learned, among other things, that not only sunflowers but camels, wild horses, bears, and sloths were native to this area. In fact, the entire valley was like a temperate mountain range, with streams and rivers flowing through it. Now, of course, what hasn't been artificially flooded with Colorado River water is sere and dusty.
On display was a tree frog whose kind shared the land with all kinds of creatures now long gone.
Angelica almost got eaten by a giant sloth, but I saved her at the last minute, as soon as I got a picture.
The place was absolutely gorgeous; I think we both felt transported to a different time and place in more ways than one.
3 comments:
so fun! i bet you never even got lost, or had to use a callbox :)
Not quite, but we did have to wait around for my parents to pick us up. That's why we've got all those excellently staged pictures...
That last picture is kind of ... trippy (for lack of a better word), at first glance. The way it's framed makes it look like you're looking up at something. But, once compared to the first picture in the series (bookends, clever), it makes more sense.
Love how, despite the timed-exposure-from-the-top-of-a-glass-container, that you two both still frame that panoramic picture.
Looks like a fun visit. =)
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