It's hard not to notice 100ft tall dinosaurs on the side of the highway!
At least that is what restaurant owner and artist Claude Bell was hoping when built a gigantic replica of a Brontosaurus (with a gift shop inside) called Dinny from left over materials from construction of the nearby I-10 freeway to attract diners to his Wheel Inn Restaurant in 1964.
He would add a second dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Mr. Rex, in 1981. Originally Mr. Rex had a slide inside but because of safety concerns it was eventually removed and plastered over.
In the 1980s these two titans became pop culture icons when they starred in the music video for the British duo Tears for Fears song Everybody Wants To Rule The World and the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure in 1985.
Today both Dinny and Mr. Rex have outlived the Wheel Inn Restaurant which closed in 2013 and are now part of a larger dinosaur themed attraction called Mr. Rex's Dinosaur Adventure built next next door.
The gift shop built inside Dinny is still open and sells (you guessed it) dinosaur toys and t-shirts.
A large outlet mall and an Indian casino were built just down the road so now the two dinosaurs aren't the only reason to pull off of I-10 in Cabazon anymore. Never the less it's the two concrete leviathans that spark imagination in the hearts of children and adults alike.
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