Cabazon Dinosaurs, Cabazon, California

     Claude Bell, a sculptor and portrait artist, created the Cabazon Dinosaurs to attract attention to his Wheel Inn Restaurant.  He began Dinny the Brontosaurus in 1964 and finished in 1975.  Mr. Rex, a Tyrannosaurus rex, was built in 1981.  In Bell's time, Dinny's innards contained a dinosaur museum which expressed an evolutionary viewpoint of creation.  In the 1990s, after Claude Bell's death, his family sold the complex to a business group that closed the restauraunt and expanded the dinosaur park.  The new owners believe in creationism, so there are conflicting messages around the park.  Bell's original murals showing ancient hominids of 30,000 to 40,000 years ago still adorn Dinny's internal walls while the current management offers the biblical account of creation - that man and dinosaurs were created about 6,000 years ago.

The Entrance to Dinny
The park is located next to Interstate 10.  Dinny was built from salvaged highway construction materials.  His steel framework was covered with mesh which was fashioned into a dinosaur shape.  Finally, the mesh was covered with sprayed concrete.  Bell wanted Dinny's eyes to glow red at night, and he wanted to make the dinosaur's mouth spit fire, but that never happened.  Too bad, I think. 

Dinny is huge - 45 feet high and 150 feet long.

Mr. Rex weighs 100 tons.  You can walk around Dinny and Mr. Rex for free.  It costs $10.00 for adults, $9.00 for children, and $7.00 for seniors and military personnel to enter the park.

I don't know if this is a prehistoric snake or a present day snake.  He has a very important job ...

... He holds the surveillance camera.  There are numerous warnings that everything in the park is monitored.

We followed the dinosaur tracks to the ticket window.     

I never pass up an opportunity to get inside a dinosaur's mouth ...

,,, or pop out of a dinosaur egg.

Besides the conflicting evolutionist/creationist information, they don't always pay attention to the scale of the animals.     

I usually offer my non-dominant hand to dogs and dinosaurs, just in case they are unfriendly.   

This is the inside of Mr. Rex's mouth.  Mr. Rex originally had a giant slide inside his tail.  Later, the slide was filled in with concrete.

This has to be a blended family 'cause there ain't no way pops fathered that brood.

     There is also an automated dinosaur exhibit.