I certainly never thought of Vernal, Utah as a destination. But a couple of years ago it happened to be between where we were and where we wanted to go, and we found ourselves at a very nice KOA on the edge of downtown. Then we went into town and were bowled over.
If you travel with kids or grandchildren, you understand the importance of dinosaurs. To that end, the Utah Field House of Natural History on the corner of U.S. Highway 40 and Main Street in downtown Vernal needs to be added to your list of destinations. It is an absolutely fabulous collection of real dinosaur fossils inside and artistic conceptions of large, ancient reptiles patrolling the grounds outside. There’s also a hands-on exhibit for kids on archaeological digs.
Shown here is the head of an allosaurus, possibly an early relative of the more famous tyrannosaurus Rex.
Dennis (misplaced Idahoan)
Haven’t been to Vernal in many years – somehow other stuff always happens. A couple of other dinosaur spots in the “neighborhood” – the U of U Field House in Salt Lake, the geology museum at the U of Wyoming in Laramie (good allosaurus and brontosaurus/Apatosaurus among others), and the Museun of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT (Jack Horner’s – Jurassic Park – museum). I hear there’s also a good one in Thermopolis, Wy, but haven’t made it there yet.
In our case, Grandpa drags the grandkids to these museums and they go along just to humor the old man … that is until they get home and tell their parents what a great time they had with the grandparents.
DavidJ
We took our grandson there a couple of years ago. We also took him to the digs and he still remembers it. It was a very interesting place to go. He still has the allosaurus movie we got him and still watches it occasionally. I would definitely add it to the list of places to go.