Adam Luna's smiling dinos are the antediluvian ambassadors of Holbrook.

Rainbow Rock Shop Dinosaurs

Holbrook, Arizona

Holbrook's proximity to Petrified National Forest gives it a prehistoric ambience, and since prehistoric means "dinosaurs" to most people, the local tourism industry features a number of dinosaur statues. The tightest and most impressive cluster is outside of the town's Rainbow Rock Shop: seven brontosauruses, two T. rex, a stegosaurus, a triceratops, and several baby dinos.

Unique nonthreatening T. rex is like a happy puppy with a stick.

They were all built by shop owner Adam Luna and stand on a small concrete patio, some enclosed within a chain-link fence.

According to Adam's son Daniel Luna, who runs the Moon Lite Barbershop in town (and which has its own Adam Luna dinosaur out front), his dad built his first Rainbow Rock Shop dinosaur, a mid-size brontosaurus, in 1986. "He's a jack-of-all-trades," said Daniel of his dad, "an electrician, a plumber, a welder," with no formal training in art. Adam would construct a steel skeleton, cover it with rebar netting, then coat the whole thing with concrete skin. Gaining confidence, Adam went on to build the rest of his rock shop's menagerie, completing his last one, according to Daniel, around 2000. The tallest stand an impressive 25 feet high.

Nature's bounty of petrified wood as far as the eye can see.

When we asked Daniel why his dad made so many dinosaurs, he said, simply, that tourists liked them.

After Adam began building his dinosaurs, rival dinos started to appear at attractions in and around Holbrook. Daniel told us that some of his father's early helpers observed his techniques, then began building dinosaurs for competing rock shops, "which they weren't supposed to do." None of these copycats equal the skill of Adam's originals, which all have smooth skin, graceful gravity-defying curves -- difficult to achieve with concrete -- colorful paint, distinct oval eyes, and little smiles. According to Daniel his father adopted this friendly style because he didn't want his dinosaurs to frighten children. Adam has reassured visitors that even though there's a lizard in the big T. rex's mouth, it won't be eaten.

Classic head-in-hole photo-op at the Rainbow Rock Shop.

Rocks available for purchase are everywhere at the Rainbow Rock Shop: piles of raw petrified wood out front and back, and smaller piles of specialty rocks scattered among the saurians. Daniel said that the power saws and polishers in the shop were all hand-built by his dad so that some of his rocks -- the ones for sale inside -- could be made more decorative. There are also hand-painted signs that forbid climbing or sitting on the dinosaurs, and that try to explain geologic forces to the untutored: "Geodes come from the center of the earth blown out of a volcano as a bubble. It fell to the ground and was buried by volcanic ash."

In the statues' early years Adam would forbid photography, and charge from 25 cents to a dollar to walk outside and take photos of tourists with the dinosaurs. The later era evolution of selfie technology put an end to that.

The shop is sometimes closed even during its posted business hours, which disappoints some visitors, but Daniel explained that his father is now "semi-retired." Adam Luna's dinosaurs, however, remain on view 24/7: cheerfully colorful ambassadors in the dun-tinged petrified wood capital of the world.