Back in the day, I used to spend a lot of time “commuting” the 20-hour back and forth haul from stinky ol’ Los Angeles to the Happiest Place On Earth, a.k.a. Austin, Texas, in an attempt to live somewhere I actually liked while attempting to maintain some semblance of a screenwriting career with all the necessary Hollywood schmoozing and whatnot.
Anyway, during one of those sleep-deprived, turkey-jerky-fueled jaunts along the good ol’ I-10 West, I happened to glance out the passenger window of my beloved hatchback Honda CRX and notice a very familiar pair of dinosaurs looming on the desert plains.
After slapping myself to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating from gas fumes and Diet Coke intoxication, I realized I was staring at the very spot where Pee-Wee Herman pitched woo to the Francophile truck stop waitress Simone (just before getting chased around the feet of a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex by Simone’s jealous, Bluto-esque boyfriend Andy in Tim Burton’s 1985 breakthrough classic, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.
According to Wikipedia, the dinosaurs (Mr. Rex, the aforementioned T-Rex, and Dinny, who used to be a brontosaurus until scientists changed the name to Apatosaurus in tribute to the hilarious films of Judd Apatow) were created by a Knott’s Berry Farm employee named Claude K. Bell to draw attention to the Wheel Inn Café (50900 Seminole Drive, Cabazon, CA), which opened in 1958.
Distressingly, Wikipedia also informs me Dinny’s interior “has been recently turned into a creationist museum promoting intelligent design theory,” so depending on your political beliefs, you might want to skip the $5.00 “dino burger” at the neighboring diner and save your money instead for the more liberal-friendly House of Waffles & Abortion further down the highway. But if you happen to find yourself on the Interstate 10, roughly 90 miles east of L.A., the Cabazon Dinosaurs will be waiting to offer an authentic slice of roadside Americana (and, uh, challenge your views on that whole elitist “scientific method” thing).
Related Stories:
Screengrab Movie Vacations #1: The Very Large Array
Screengrab Movie Vacations #2: Pagsanjan, Philippines
Screengrab Movie Vacations #3: Devil’s Tower, Wyoming
