Many of the natural and human features of the landscape were still in evidence. Lakes, streams and hills survived, as did forests and farmlands. Dictated by natural featues, they may change little. Property boundaries and communications lines and roads may be replaced, but they often follow the original logic imposed on them by the geography. Buildings may be destroyed, but their replacements often occupy the same sites, and serve the same purpose. And on larger scales, the contours and drainage remain the same, as does the natural vegetation and land use influenced by it.

Eventually, entropy and growth change the land, both the human and natural features. When you get to be our age, Bowz, you have lived long enough to start to notice these things directly, they are part of your experience and memory, not just something you have heard from others. The landscape changes with you, and you gain the temporal perspective to notice the change.

The world is in constant turmoil, what we witness is an instantaneous photograph of a boiling kettle of stew; only our short life spans prevent us from realizing this instinctively. At historical, geological, and cosmic time scales, the world is a bubbling cauldron of transformation, imperceptible to those who have only spent a short amount of time in it…or thinking about it.

It is good to study history, as well as geology and astronomy. They remind us of the granularity of time as well as its continuous flow; the fractal structure of reality extends beyond the spatial realm into the temporal. And those who understand this will always be able to walk in beauty…and in wonder.