October 14/15     154 miles     VERNAL, Dinosaur Land KOA, UTAH   ($22.72)

Into Utah and a Visit to the Dinosaur National Monument

We shopped in the town of Craig, 15 miles west on US.40 at 6,200 ft, with a choice of supermarkets, motels and eating places, as well as a Visitor Centre and free Pioneer Museum. Getting petrol (a mistake, as it turned out to be cheaper in Utah later in the day), we admired the gleaming Peterbilt tanker which was replenishing the Conoco service station. Proud driver, Chris Wycoff, told us he was delivering 8,100 US gallons to the station and he could carry up to 9,500 US gallons – a valuable cargo indeed at $3 a gallon and enough to take us 140,000 miles!

In Dinosaur (total 102 miles at 5,900 ft) we parked by the Colorado State Visitor Centre for lunch, watching a pair of prairie dogs scampering above their burrows in the afternoon sun (like small sandy-brown  marmots). It was a small place - just a motel, RV Park, fuel station and the Bedrock Café, along with a pair of garish model dinosaurs labelled 'Keep Off'. There was a road leading 30 miles north into the Dinosaur National Monument (a national park which stretches between Colorado and Utah): a scenic drive but not the way to the Dinosaur Quarry which (confusingly) is over the border in Utah.

Another 4 miles to the State line at 5,609 ft: 'Welcome to Utah, Olympic Winter Games, Salt Lake 2002'. The scenery changed abruptly to a more hostile rocky landscape and we recalled that Utah was allocated to the Mormons when they were unwelcome elsewhere – an area of desert and salt lakes. 17 miles into Utah, at Jensen (4,753 ft) opposite the Outlaw Trail RV Park, is a splendid new Visitor Centre with information on the state and the 'dinosaurland' we have entered.

Just 7 miles north, into the national park ($10 per vehicle or National Parks Pass in summer, free in winter), is the world's largest Jurassic-era fossil bone quarry. A cliff face (at 4,980 ft at the bottom) has been partially excavated and covered by an enormous  2-storey Visitor Centre, within which palaeontologists are still working. The exhibition, the illustrated talk given by Ranger Margaret Gray and, above all, the sheer size and number of the fossilised bones and skulls was incredibly fascinating. These are the remains of  creatures who lived on our planet 150 million years ago, the ancestors of the lizards who survive – Dinosaur means 'fearfully great lizard' (Greek).

The first bones – 8 large tail vertebrae from a Sauropod - were found in this area in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a palaeontologist from Carnegie Museum. After 350 tons of fossils were excavated and removed to museums (carried by mule-drawn wagons), President Wilson saved the quarry by making the site a National Monument in 1915.

The cliff is actually an upthrust river bed and it is thought that a drought caused the dinosaurs to gather for survival, eventually dying as the water dried up. About 1,400 fossilised bones are visible (with many more lying undisturbed at hundreds of non-accessible sites in the park). The only other local exhibition of dinosaur fossils is at the new museum in the city of Vernal, 13 miles west of Jensen.

More at www.nps.gov/dino and www.dinoland.com.

We continued to Vernal and settled on the KOA 1 mile north of town on US.191 – a lovely campground, with autumn trees shedding their orange and golden leaves around us in the sunshine (daytime temperature in the 70's again: at 5,317 ft we have left the Rocky Mountain climate behind). WiFi is $4 for as long as you stay, but very likely to drop out at an awkward moment.

A walk of a mile or so into the city on a very quiet Saturday afternoon, ended at the War Memorial which was itself an unusual sight on American streets. There were with fitting tributes to those who fought in both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, along with a list of those who were killed. The helicopter gunship, guarding the entrance to the Law Courts, was a reminder of just how vicious war had become. Visit www.vernalcity.org to see 'the most beautiful Main Street in America'.