CABAZON DINOSAURS, CALIFORNIA – Travel Photographer

The Cabazon Dinosaur Park has been on my bucket list for almost as long as I can remember. As soon as I read about it I knew I had to go see it for myself. The tricky thing is, it’s in the middle of nowhere in the California desert and never knew when I would be able to get there. Turns out that Joshua Tree National Park is also in the middle of nowhere in the California desert. When I was road tripping to Joshua Tree with my sister for a stylized engagement shoot, we were able to stop and finally cross these dinos off my list!

“What better road trip pit stop is there than a giant dinosaur park complete with fossil digging and dino-shaped ice cream??”

Time for a little history lesson. The Cabazon Dinosaurs was originally created by a guy named Claude Bell who just wanted something to draw people in to his restaurant, the Wheel Inn.

Let me tell ya, that man Claude was a genius because what better road trip pit stop is there than a giant dinosaur park complete with rock digging and ice cream?? We even got to climb into the mouth of the T-Rex! Whiiich was terrifying. As we sat unsupervised in the mouth of a fifty-year-old dinosaur in a semi deserted park in the middle of nowhere, we suddenly began contemplating how structurally unsound it all seemed. So, we immediately climbed down and live to tell the tale!

Unfortunately, Claude’s restaurant, the Wheel Inn, closed a few years ago, but the dinos have lived on and have also been featured in many movies over the years. If you ever have a chance to go see these semi-scary but also cute dinosaurs, definitely do! And play the Jurassic Park movie album while you walk through…we did, and it makes it 100 times better!

Liv