Tips, leads, stories from travelers, plus Roadsideamerica.com Team reports on quirky museums, ironic monuments, and must-see oddities! Trip planning caution: Some tips may not be verified. Over time, attractions change, move, burn down. What's a vacation without a little risk? Submit your own tip.
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- Cabazon, California - Claude Bell's Dinosaurs - Vegetarians? My father would have a fit if he knew what they've done to his dinosaurs. He
tried to keep them real, he would get fan mail from children as far away as
Japan, they would study them in school and ask him for facts, not fiction! He
was proud that he was able to stay as close to the originals as possible in
height, length, coloring, even down to the texture! Please encourage Ms.
Minkoff to refrain from "dangling a human dummy from Dinny's mouth," they
didn't eat meat!
[Wendy Bell (daughter of Claude K. Bell), 10/29/2000][RA: More on the Dinosaurs of Cabazon.]Cabazon Dinosaurs:
Address: 50770 Seminole Dr., Cabazon, CA [Show Map]
Directions: I-10, Main Street exit, 13 miles west of Palm Springs.
Admission: $5.
Hours: Daily. - Cabazon, California - Claude Bell's Dinosaurs My family bought the property from the [Claude] Bell Trust about six years ago. We have done quite a bit of development. We own the Denny's Restaurant and there is also a Burger King located on the property. We are hoping to build a full service truck stop and a hotel as soon as we can build a flood wall which is holding up any more development.
An interesting story regarding the maintenance of the dinos: We recently had them painted. It cost a total of one dollar and a case of Dr. Pepper! We worked out a deal with a painting contractor. If we let him paint our dino's he could use them in his advertising brochure. So one dollar and a case of Dr. Pepper later, the dino's look great. Rex has a zig-zag strip down his back and Dinny is painted a color of gray which is pretty real-looking. We are contacting an electrical engineer who is going to put 1,000 watt up-lighting on the dino's so people will see them miles away at night, with red glowing eyes in both.
In our Denny's we pay tribute to the man who built these beauties along with the history and cost of construction. We believe the Bell Family would like knowing their Dad and Grandfather are not forgotten. In a glass enclosure we have several original newspaper articles along with pictures of the dino's while they were under construction.
I was recently in the T-Rex and am thinking we would like to rig him up so he would make the same roar as the T-Rex did in Jurassic Park. The kids will love it. We are also thinking of having a human dummy dangling out of his mouth. Not too scary for the little ones though. Oh yeah, the T-Rex also has a bathroom in him, Pee Wee Herman insisted on one in the T-Rex when he filmed his movie there. [Sherry Minkoff, 02/15/2000]
[RA: More on the Dinosaurs of Cabazon.]Cabazon Dinosaurs:
Address: 50770 Seminole Dr., Cabazon, CA [Show Map]
Directions: I-10, Main Street exit, 13 miles west of Palm Springs.
Admission: $5.
Hours: Daily.
