1 BILLION BC: WATERED DOWN

Our story begins many, many years ago—maybe a billion. At this early date, things were reasonably slow in North Carolina—at least above water. No voices echoed across the mountains, no tall timbers swayed in the breeze, no bears roamed the motherland and no hurricanes tore the charming beaches to smithereens. In fact, to be absolutely truthful, the whole place was a dive.

A billion years ago, according to extremely fanatical guessers (scientists), North Carolina was an immense flat plain blanketed by a devilishly warm sea. It was the kind of place big-game fishermen, deep-sea divers and marine scientists would have adored. Your grandmother? Not so much. You see, according to the fossil record, it was inhabited by crazy-looking corals, funky jelly fish, giant eat-anything sharks and larger-than-we-can-imagine sea creatures. These marine animals were fantastic in size, shape and color— with names like pteridinium and megalodon—and they spread themselves across the entire water-soaked state.

But there was one problem. These dazzling creatures had no idea they were in North Carolina.