Episode two; OAT CREEK CAMEL

By Gilbert Gonzalez

South Fork Oat Creek passes quietly and seasonally through a huge and old cattle ranch that sits on 16,000 acres of an ancient oak forest. Other than the effects of cattle and sheep grazing, this dry land oak forest is pretty much the same as it has been for many centuries. Large areas of beautiful Valley Oaks, tall Jack Pines, Blue Oaks, Manzanita and Holly bushes flank the creek on it’s decent from the Capay Hills. Water from Bob Walker Canyon and Tut Canyon feed the creek as it delicately excavates the mineral specimens buried in the forest soil.

While looking for petrified wood along the rocky bottom of the creek, I was rewarded with finding some nice fossilized mammal bones. The largest was about six inches long and 2 ¼ inches thick and it was hollow. The inside of the hollow portion of the bone was lined with small druzzy quartz crystals. I found a second piece, it was a fore leg joint bone. It was a little smaller but a totally awesome specimen. It was a really good day, as I also found some very large pieces of Yolo County petrified wood.

I kept those fossils for about a year, until it was time for my annual pilgrimage to Snyder’s Pow Wow rockhound camp out, near Valley Springs, California. I believe it was 1998 when I loaded my old Chevy truck with lots of petrified wood specimens, Yolo agate, Yolo jasper and that six inch fossil bone. I packed in all my camping stuff and rain gear and rolled on down the road to the Rock Hound Pow Wow. It was great weather and the sun was out, as I set up my tent and camp site. My two tables were loaded with my rock specimens, a few fossils and a bob cat hide I had salted and dried. I also brought two coolers of fresh asparagus from Durst farms, the vendors loved it.

Along came a rock hound fossil collector by the name of Darrel Shelly and he really liked my fossils from Yolo County. He identified the large six inch fossil bone that I had found as a camel’s leg bone, and gave me thirty dollars for the fossil. It was a good Pow Wow that year and I have continued to attend that rock show each year. In May of 2006 I was again set up at Snyder’s Pow Wow with a whole lot of Yolo County rocks.

I was buying and selling rocks and visiting with other wild rock venders, when at my table appeared California’s world famous geologist Jim Mills. He has a great interest in my Yolo petrified wood and always stops by to talk about petrified wood and California and Yolo County geology.. So we visited and told stories while he checked out all my petrified wood specimens, then Jim heads off to find that special treasure specimen at the pow wow.

A couple of people stopped by and bought a few specimens while I was just chillin out in the shade of my canopy. Thirty minutes later Jim returns and tells my that there is a dealer selling a camel bone with my name on the label.

I said, “WHAT!”

Jim explained what he had found, so I followed him to this other dealers booth. Wow! There’s the camel fossil bone I had sold to Darrel Shelly all those years ago and it still had my information on the label about where I had found it in Yolo County. The dealer explained that he had bought Shelly’s entire collection and was now selling it. I asked how much he wanted for the camel fossil bone, he said he didn’t know, so I offered him ten bucks and he agreed. Alright, the camel fossil has returned to the person that found it. I was excited about this rare turn of events, so I will have to keep that old camel bone here in the area where he once lived. Though it is only a six inch piece of a fossil bone with druzzy quartz, from an extinct California camel that roamed the central valley at the end of the Tertiary period, it is special to me.

 Thanks