Thirty miles east of the Utah border, US-50 diverges from high-speed I-70 at the city of Grand Junction (pop. 41,986) on the Colorado River. After all the desert that surrounds it, Grand Junction feels much bigger than you’d expect, with its thriving old downtown, complete with cobblestoned streets, odd bits of outdoor sculpture, great antique shops, neon signs—and tons of free parking. Catering to passing traffic, Grand Junction’s I-70 frontage has all the motels and places to eat you could want, but downtown holds one really nice older place, the clean and comfortable Hotel Melrose ($30–50; 970/242-9636), a block south of Main Street at 337 Colorado Avenue —just look for the red neon sign.
Like the rest of western Colorado and eastern Utah, the Grand Junction area is rich in two things: the scenic splendor of rivers and red-rock canyons, and fossilized dinosaurs. The scenery is everywhere, and a fine array of the latter are on display west of town along I-70 at Fruita, in the Museum of Western Colorado’s wonderful Dinosaur Journey (daily; $6; 970/242-0971). Kids can have fun pushing buttons to control gigantic audio-animatronic mechanical critters, while learning a little about Triassic, Jurassic, and other period details.
