Nightglow Window

The Past Uncovered

Not too far behind my house is a nice agricultural belt -- hills covered in tomatoes and lettuce. When you're driving down my street it gives a great backdrop, something far removed from the typical suburban sprawl.

But this area is slowly being nibbled away. The land is just too valuable. There's talk that a "high-end" WalMart Test Store will be built (yuck!) and already the huge Caterpillar earth movers are at work along Cannon Road, building houses. I can see them rumble across the landscape like dinosaurs as I pedal past on my way to Calavera Hills. When it's particularly still in the morning, I can even hear them sitting here at my desk. It's an ominous sound, to me.

So I was interested to read that those very earth movers have uncovered a surprise. Mastodon fossils. Camel Fossils. And far older fossils of a VW Beetle-sized dinosaur called the Ankylosaur. It's really quite amazing, being that they were found less than a mile from my house.

And while these discoveries won't be enough to stop the march of construction "progress", perhaps it will slow it down a tad. At the very least it's given me a different perspective on where I live, allowed my mind to reach back far further than the time of Spanish Missionaries, to a time utter wildness.