Three overlooks together, and one out on its own

Seven lookouts are on the roster for the Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway. Plot their coordinates and they fall into three small groups and a loner. Three overlooks share one short stretch. Two are named for a river. One is the outlook at a tunnel. And Harley Dome View Area stands by itself.

Three of seven overlooks inside three quarters of a mile. The nearest one to Harley Dome is forty-eight miles away.

Little Canyon, Court Point, Eagles Perch

The farthest pair of the three, Little Canyon Overlook and Eagles Perch Overlook, are under three quarters of a mile apart by their published coordinates. Court Point Overlook is half a mile from Little Canyon and under four tenths of a mile from Eagles Perch.

Their names do three different jobs. One describes the ground, one names a point, one names the place a bird would sit. It is the only spot on the roster where one overlook is less than a mile from another. Two and a half miles from Eagles Perch, and a mile and a half off the route, sits a museum called Moab Giants.

The outlook and the river

Tusher Tunnel South Outlook comes eight miles on. It is the only entry called an outlook rather than an overlook or a view area, and the only one named for a tunnel. Then twenty-three miles to River Overlook, and three more to Green River Overlook. Two stops in a row, and both are named for water.

A little over three miles from Green River Overlook, and just over a mile off the route, sits the John Wesley Powell River History Museum. In the names on this stretch the river keeps turning up: twice on the lookouts, once more on the museum beside them.

Harley Dome, by itself

Harley Dome View Area is the outlier. It is the northernmost of the seven and the easternmost, the only one called a view area, and its nearest neighbour on the roster is Eagles Perch, forty-eight miles away in a straight line. Nothing else on the list comes close to that kind of distance from company.

North of every lookout

The drawn route runs well north of Harley Dome, and none of the seven lookouts follows it there. On the byway itself the record marks the Northern Ute Veterans Memorial, the Jensen Welcome Center and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, the last of them ninety miles from Harley Dome in a straight line. The Prehistoric Museum sits eight tenths of a mile off the route in the same northern stretch.

The word dinosaur is in the byway's name and on none of its seven lookouts.

What that makes the drive

The catalogue gathers its views into one short run in the south, pairs two more under the river's name, and leaves a single view area out on its own to the east. North of that, the record hands the road to a memorial, a welcome center and museums.

A roster of seven that puts three in one place has to spread the other four thin.

At Harley Dome, do not wait for another overlook to turn up. The nearest one on the list is forty-eight miles away, and the view in front of you is the only one arriving.