Visiting the Cabazon Dinosaurs, the desert giants you can climb inside

Two concrete giants have been pulling drivers off the I-10 for half a century, and one of them hides a staircase that leads up to its teeth. Here’s how to visit Dinny and Mr Rex: the story behind them, what you’ll find in the park today, tickets, opening hours and the drive from Palm Springs.

I pulled off the freeway at Cabazon late on a November afternoon, during my stay in Palm Springs, and found Mr Rex towering over the car park in a bright red Santa suit. That set the tone. The Cabazon Dinosaurs are kitsch, a little strange and huge fun, as long as you arrive in the mood for it.

You can see both of the big dinosaurs for free from the car park, but the ticket is worth it for one thing: the narrow stairs inside Mr Rex that take you up into his head. Yes, I climbed up and roared out through his teeth. It’s oddly therapeutic, just as everyone says.

Cabazon Dinosaurs at a glance

• Where: 50770 Seminole Drive, Cabazon, CA 92230, at the Main Street exit off the I-10
• From Palm Springs: a 20-mile drive west, about 25 minutes
• Tickets: adults (13 to 55) $15; children (3 to 12) $13; seniors and military $11. Pay at the door, as there’s no online booking
• Hours: open every day from 9am; closing time shifts with the season, between about 6pm and 7pm
• Free: parking, photos of Dinny and Mr Rex from outside, and the gift shop inside Dinny
• Time needed: 45 minutes to an hour
• Dogs: on a lead, and carried inside the exhibit

How Claude Bell built Dinny and Mr Rex

The dinosaurs were the work of one man. Claude Bell was a sculptor who made concrete figures and ran the portrait studio at Knott’s Berry Farm, and in 1946 he paid $5,000 for a plot of desert at Cabazon. In 1958 he opened a diner there, the Wheel Inn, and to tempt drivers in he started building a brontosaurus beside it in 1964, when he was in his late sixties.

Dinny took him 11 years. She’s made of a steel frame, expanded metal and sprayed concrete, partly from materials left over from building the I-10, and she stretches about 150 feet from nose to tail and stands 45 feet high.

Mr Rex came next. His frame was up by 1981 and he was finished in 1986, a 65-foot tyrannosaurus with a tail Bell designed as a slide before deciding the slope was too steep. Bell died in 1988, with a woolly mammoth and a prehistoric garden still on his wish list, and the Wheel Inn closed in 2013.

In the 1990s the site was bought by Gary Kanter, an Orange County developer, and the Kanter family still runs it. From 2005 the park took on a young-Earth creationist theme, with signs inside disputing evolution, but that had gone by 2017, and today it’s simply a dinosaur park.

Dinny and Mr Rex on screen

For many visitors, the dinosaurs are famous for one film. In Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Large Marge drops Pee-wee at the Wheel Inn, the waitress Simone takes him up inside Mr Rex to watch the sunrise, and her jealous boyfriend chases him round the dinosaurs. The sunrise scene was actually shot on a replica head on a studio set in Burbank.

The pair also turn up in the Tears for Fears video for Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and when Paul Reubens, who played Pee-wee, died in 2023, Mr Rex was repainted in Pee-wee’s grey suit and red bow tie.

What’s at the Cabazon Dinosaurs today

Walk the dinosaur trail

Behind Mr Rex, more than 100 dinosaurs lurk along a path through the desert scrub, from a stegosaurus to raptors and long-necked sauropods, and some of them are animatronic. Late in the afternoon, when I went, the low sun picked them out among the bushes, with the mountains behind. The sculptures are mass-produced rather than Bell’s handiwork, so come for the fun, not the science.

Climb up inside Mr Rex

Your ticket includes the climb. A narrow, winding staircase of small steps leads up through Mr Rex’s body to a viewing platform in his mouth, where you look out through a row of white teeth over the freeway. A little sign up there orders you to “Let the world hear you ROAR!”, and it would be rude not to. Wear proper shoes, and think twice if you’re unsteady on your feet.

Dig for fossils and pan for gems

Children can dig in the sand pit for a rock with a dinosaur’s name on it and swap it for a prize. There’s also a sluice for panning: buy a bag of gemstones and fossils in the gift shop and sift through it with running water.

Shop inside Dinny

You don’t need a ticket to walk into Dinny’s belly, which holds a gift shop full of dinosaur toys, T-shirts and Cabazon souvenirs. A second shop sits in the museum inside the park.

See what Mr Rex is wearing

The owners dress the dinosaurs for the seasons: a Santa suit for Mr Rex at Christmas, pink for Dinny around Valentine’s Day, and one-off tributes like the Pee-wee suit. When I visited in November, Mr Rex was already in festive red and an inflatable dinosaur was handing out presents by the trail.

Tickets, hours and how long to spend

Tickets (prices above) are sold at the door only and cover the trail, the museum and the climb up Mr Rex. The park opens at 9am every day and closes at around 6pm to 7pm, a little later at weekends and in summer, and later still on evening event nights, so check the official website before a late visit.

Allow 45 minutes to an hour. I spent about half an hour, which was enough to walk the trail and climb Mr Rex, but families with children digging for fossils will want longer.

How to get there from Palm Springs

You’ll need a car. From downtown Palm Springs, head north on Highway 111 to the I-10, then west through the San Gorgonio Pass, past the wind turbines, and take the Main Street exit at Cabazon: about 20 miles and 25 minutes. From Joshua Tree National Park’s West Entrance it’s around 45 minutes, and from downtown Los Angeles about 90 miles, or an hour and a half with clear roads.

Make a half day of it with a date shake at Hadley Fruit Orchards, a family business since 1931, or a browse of the Desert Hills Premium Outlets and Cabazon Outlets, all a few minutes’ drive away. For more ideas, see my guides to things to do in Palm Springs and the best day trips from Palm Springs.

Tips for your visit

• Short on time? Dinny, Mr Rex and the gift shop are free, so you can get your photos in ten minutes without a ticket.
• Mind the heat: in summer Cabazon is baking by midday, so go first thing. From late autumn to spring, the late afternoon light is lovely on the dinosaurs.
• Check the outfits: the dinosaurs change costume through the year, and holiday events can change the hours.

Map

Read next

• 27 things to do in Palm Springs, Old Hollywood’s favourite desert hideaway
• The best day trips from Palm Springs
• How to spend 2 days in Palm Springs (and still catch sunrise in Joshua Tree)
• The 17 best things to do in Joshua Tree National Park
• The ultimate California road trip itinerary

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