Cabazon, California: Claude Bell's Dinosaurs

The place certainly looks great from the freeway and up close the dinosaurs don't disappoint. The robotic dinos move and sound convincing, and the T-Rex is cool to climb into. That much is worth the entry fee for sure.

However... from the outside, the place gives no hint that it is a fundamentalist Christian organization determined to convince its patrons that man and dinosaur coexisted because "the Bible says so on the 6th day."

Posted in several conspicuous locations within the compound are signs talking about how carbon dating is wrong. Even more hilarious are various displays showing a knight amongst dinosaurs and a WW2 era soldier hanging out in the jungle with velociraptors. Really?! Flintstones was not a documentary, guys.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the good ideas contained within the Bible, but crafting a dinosaur show to lure kids, and the kid-at-heart, and then blindsiding them with a "science is faith too" message just smacks of shady conduct.

I love the dinos because of Pee-Wees Big Adventure. I love the Wheel Inn. Great service, great food.

What I no longer love is the religious agenda. It was amusing at first going into the "museum" and seeing an army dude and a medieval knight with the dinosaurs, and then you start reading about anti-Darwin BS. I paid $5 to get preached at. $20 total, since I took 2 teenagers and my mate. Luckily, they are old enough to know that science disproves that a knight was jousting with a t-rex, and I didn't have to explain anything.

Museums should be educational, and this was not. The preaching really took the wind out of the experience for me.

I've been multiple times in the last few years, and almost always stop at the Wheel Inn. Don't think I'll be going back into the "museum" any time soon.

It looks as if they are adding to the dinosaurs. I passed through on my way home from Palm Springs and they had added quite a few more dinos....there were a few raptors, a stegasaurus, triceratops, and about 6 others. There was also a random medieval knight. The whole area is under construction and is fenced off. We could only look through the fence. The T-Rex is currently closed to visitors -- no climbing inside. The website said they're making additions that are "coming soon."

My girlfriend and I went to see the famous "Dinny and Rex" in Cabazon, California today, and were a little surprised to find the new owners using the two as a back drop for their theology agenda. Attached to the toys in the gift shop were laminated tags proclaiming Darwinism as wrong, and bible scriptures to back them up. There message is also evident from the HUGE sign at the entrance of Dinny's belly as well as the pamphlets and DVDs customers received if they spent $20 or more. It was definitely a little weird.

The dinosaurs appear to have been painted recently, as one previous updater stated. What we didn't find were any signs of neon eyes or a bathroom inside Rex. Along with the dinosaurs are a snake (With video camera in its mouth??) and a giant sea turtle. There is also no Dennys restaurant (also previously reported), and the Wheel Inn is open and ready for business. There was a nice size crowd around lunch time, and a brand new Burger King on the grounds.

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!