Near the northern Colorado-Utah border, there’s a river-cut land of colorful rock traversed by the short Fossil Discovery Trail. It is an interpretive trail, with educational signs and remembrances of Earl Douglas. He is the paleontologist credited with the 1915 establishment of Dinosaur National Monument.

Along that trail through this sweeping dinosaur graveyard, one panel recalls a question from Douglas:

“How much is true, in this land of dreams, and how much is fiction, and which is more fascinating and marvelous?”

A reoccurring work of fiction typically brings more people to Dinosaur National Monument. Typically, whenever a new “Jurassic Park” movie comes out, an uptick of visitation is noted here.

Yes, after the latest blockbuster, “Jurassic World: Dominion,” imaginations will lead out here to far west Colorado — and to other dinosaur conservation sites around the state.

So which is more fascinating and marvelous: the prehistoric beasts on the big screen or the remains we see and touch today? Find out for yourself at these spots:

Denver Museum of Nature and Science

The Prehistoric Journey exhibit transports one to a time even before the dinosaurs, to a time of deep oceans and big bugs before the next prevailing species. Among that species are the Allosaurus and Stegosaurus, appearing as if in battle in their towering, fossilized states. Also in the scene is an 80-foot-long diplodocus.

Dinosaur Journey

The Fruita museum captures the Jurassic exploration in several ways: through thousands of fossils, several life-sized casts, a simulated earthquake, a viewable laboratory and a makeshift quarry where kids and kids-at-heart can dig for bones.

Dinosaur National Monument

At last visit, we heard a ranger call the Quarry Exhibit Hall “like no place in the world.”

Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find a display like this: a cliffside bearing some 1,500 heads, arms, legs, tails and spines where they were left some 149 million years ago.

Dinosaur Ridge

Colorado’s official state fossil is the stegosaurus. That’s for the state claiming the world’s first specimen of the armored herbivore, unearthed in 1876 near Morrison. The discovery is celebrated along a trail at Dinosaur Ridge.

Along the fossil-rich hogback between major highways, it’s a stark step back in time accompanied by more bones and hundreds of fossilized tracks.

Visitors wanting the most in-depth experience can schedule a guided walking tour.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

West of Colorado Springs in Teller County, this is a much different glimpse into the past. The monument is less about the sensational likes of dinosaurs — though, the massive tree stumps are quite striking — and more about the subtleties of life in an era hard to comprehend.

In the visitor center, plants and insects are preserved from volcanic ash that coated them in what was a lush, tropical landscape.

Picket Wire Canyonlands

Last year along this surprising, rugged expanse out on the the state’s southeast plains, crews cleaning flood debris uncovered more circular footprints. They are more belonging to the long-necked giants that once roamed this ancient seabed — more accounting for what is regarded as North America’s longest stretch of dino tracks.

People have walked with them by hiking an 11.2-mile round trip from the Withers Canyon trailhead or by booking seasonal tours with the U.S. Forest Service.

Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center

In little Woodland Park, this museum boasts a big reputation for what it calls an “awe-inspiring” array. That includes skeletons and casts of prehistoric reptiles that lived by land, sea and sky, along with Cretaceous fish.

Skyline Drive

It’s a hair-raising drive on a narrow, no-guardrail stretch of pavement off U.S. 50 just north of Cañon City. The reward: tracks set in limestone, belonging to an iconic creature. The ankylosaurus walked on four legs, with an imposing, spiky shield on its back and a club-like tail for defense. Here at this scenic precipice, imagine it lumbering westward through former marshes.