You know I keep saying every place we stop proves to have more than we can possibly see in a day? Delta (population 3500) is no exception. In addition to the trilobite quarry there is Topaz Mountain, where people find topaz stones lying around; Topaz Camp, a Japanese internment camp dating from WWII; a place where geodes abound (those stones you cut in half and find beautiful crystals inside); a great rock and fossil store; and a very new coal-fired power plant owned by the city of Los Angelos, CA Who'd a thought???
We took a drive the evening we arrived.
We wanted to see the Japanese internment camp:
Most of the buildings were gone, but dirt roads remained, along with a few scattered artifacts that were a ghostly reminder:
The view of the mountain ranges was reassuring:
And yielded another beautiful sunset:
The next morning we left for the trilobite quarry. The instructions were to drive 30 miles west on a paved road. Did I mention Delta is in the middle of a high desert?
Then we were to drive 20 miles north on a gravel road:
which eventually led to a small mountain range:
And a quarry of Cambrian-aged shale!
And no, we were not the only ones there. About 10 others arrived before the end of the day. It is the end of the season, after all. The day was a beautiful day - 78 degrees. I was grateful not to be there during the heat of summer. Here is Lee, getting ready to strike a shale rock to see what surprises might reside within. His bucket already has a few items in it.
We found trilobites, fossilized in the shale! Nothing exceptional, nothing over an inch long. But still, all in all, a very satisfying day.
