The time of "ancient life", way before the backpacking era, from about 250 to 542 million years ago in fact. It saw the development of all classes of invertebrates (except for insects, somehow), the appearance of seed-bearing plants, and of amphibians and reptiles (like some of your high school classmates). Basically it had left the stage of pure slime behind, but wasn't yet up to current standards, and extended from the age of trilobites to that of reptiles (all stuff with legs — still creepy but with legs). Evidently it was considered progress, then.
An era slightly before my time, but I found some good fossils from there crawling around in the closet of a place I rented once. And my uncle Ed kinda remembers it. Says he does. Better him than me. Just being around him usually makes me itch.
From Desert Geological Terms Kinda.
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Me? Suddenly feeling extinct.