Dig Ancient History With a Thai to the Present

Shake out those bones and learn all about fossils at Ralph B. Clark Regional Park in Buena Park. There’s a whale of a tale to be told, and, in fact, the Interpretive Center boasts the most complete adult fossil whale--”Joaquin”--on display in the world. You can catch your own catfish at the park, but there’s barbecued catfish, and smaller fish to fry, at Thai Nakorn.

3:15 to 3:45: Joaquin the Whale was found in Laguna Niguel when a route for the proposed San Joaquin Hills toll road was being surveyed. (That proves the toll road’s good for something.)

Why was he moved to Clark Regional Park? “This is the only facility in Orange County dedicated to fossils,” staff paleontologist Lisa Babilonia-Jones explained. Joaquin’s beautifully preserved 26-foot skeleton is the Interpretive Center’s star exhibit.

Another display uses stacks of National Geographic to show the geological history of the park. It’s apparently like some giant filo pastry: “As time passes, the layers accumulate like magazines on a shelf. . . . The cliffs and hills of Clark Park are composed of 21 layers, each of which contains its own collection of fossil organisms.”

Did you know there were three types of camel hereabouts during the Pleistocene era? Two types have been found at the park, as has an example of our state fossil, the saber-toothed cat.

But my favorite exhibit was the giant ground sloth. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but, according to Babilonia-Jones, “over the years the (exhibit) cables have stretched, and his bones are out of alignment. Now we’re doing chiropractic work rather than paleontology.”

The center is one of three facilities in the United States that houses fossils from its own dig sites. You can watch volunteers work on the fossils, or if you’re 18 or older, you can be one of those volunteers.

3:45 to 4:30: Sign in at the center and check out one of two trail guides for the same marked path: “Walk on Our Wild Side” is a nature walk, “Rockin’ ‘Round the Park” a fossil walk; both are geared to families.

Sample entry for the fossil walk: “Hey! Did you bring your scuba gear? At one time that is what you would need. You would be under about 150 feet of water just offshore. . . . Across Rosecrans Avenue would have been the beach!”

Fossils were first discovered here in the 1950s, but scientific collecting did not begin until 1969. About 4,000 specimens were recovered over the next five years. Marker No. 5 on the trail marks the main dig site, LC-40, where saber-toothed cat, giant ground sloth and tapir fossils have been found. At Marker No. 6, a bench on Coyote Hill overlooks the ball field, oil fields and parking lot.

What is possibly the least visually interesting site, at Marker No. 8, may be the most interesting of all. Between 1952 and 1973, 350 million cubic yards of sand and gravel were removed from the site then known as the Emery Borrow Pit and used to construct the Santa Ana and Riverside freeways.

4:30 to 5: Mallards, coots and grebes are common sights at the lake. Herons and egrets are frequent visitors in the morning, and you’ll also spot the occasional kingfisher. You can fish for bass and bluegill, but if you’re over 16 you’ll need a license. A bridge leads past a playground that has little rocking motorcycles to a pretty little island in the middle of the lake.

5 to 6:15: No, Thai Nakorn is not the Asian version of Tiny Naylor. The chairs in fact look straight out of IHOP, with a few folding chairs thrown in for good measure. There’s a mounted deer head, pheasant and framed butterflies on the walls at one end of the room, an elaborate woodcarving at another and a television in every corner.

The waiters and waitresses wear little headsets, and don’t worry if they all take turns coming to the table. We said, “Somebody else is helping us” half a dozen times before we figured out they were all supposed to be helping us. We started with a salad of barbecued catfish ($5.95); the fish came chopped and mixed with a marvelous hot and sour sauce and served on a bed of cabbage, mint and other greens. Dried salty beef ($5.95) was like juicy beef jerky, and very addictive.

An innocent request for fried pomfret fish with chili, garlic and sauce ($9) brought a look of terror to the face of our waiter-of-the-moment.

“No, no, it’s too hot, it’s too hot!” he said.

When we insisted, he offered to bring the sauce on the side. “That’s OK, put it right on the plate,” we said.

The sauce came on the side, and what came had little to do with chili and garlic and much to do with sweet and sour. There was apparently no way to get a taste of the sauce we ordered because, waiter after waiter, all of whom were trying to help, explained that the sauce is made fresh and the chef couldn’t make it unless we ordered another dish.

While I could have gotten as testy as a saber-toothed cat, the sauce that came was wonderful. And a Thai fruit combination ($4) including jackfruit, palm seed, water chestnuts, coconut milk and shaved ice soon had me purring instead--content, in fact, as a giant sloth.

1. Ralph B. Clark Regional Park, 8800 Rosecrans Ave., (714) 670-8052

Open Tuesday through Friday, 12:30 to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

2. Thai Nakorn, 8674 Stanton Ave., (714) 952-4954 Open Monday though Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

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PARKING / BUSES

Parking: There is ample parking at both locations; fee is $2 per vehicle at Ralph B. Clark Regional Park.

Buses: OCTA bus 29 runs north and south along Beach Boulevard with stops at Rosecrans and Stanton avenues.

* Times Line 808-8463

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