Making this journey offers an opportunity to do more than read about such changes. When you visit the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, nestled within the Journey Through Time's route, you'll be able to explore the very places where the drama is abundantly, though silently, still evident.

The 3-unit monument encompasses a region 40-50 million years old, the remnant of a subtropical jungle once dominated by massive volcanoes and huge brontotheres called "thunder beasts" which resembled modern rhinoceroses.

Four-tusked, elephant-like gomphotheres also roamed these hills and millions of years ago beardogs and entelodonts terrorized browsing animals in a forest landscape that was much warmer and wetter than today. Over 2,000 extinct fossilized species have been found in the valleys and canyons of the Journey Through Time region.