From: Stephanie
To: Phillip
Date: April 22, 2014
Subject: I FOUND THE DINOSAURS!!
You know how when we go to California I’m always like “where are the dinosaurs?”, and you’re like “what?”
Well, add this to the list of things I was not making up: http://retroroadmap.com/spot/giant-dinosaurs-in-the-desert-cabazon-ca/
YEAH!!
We need to go visit them.
I misremembered the location of the life-sized T-Rex and Brontosaurus that had always been a landmark on childhood road trips to California, and I was beginning to think they’d gone extinct.
Clicking around on travel blogs one day, I ended up at Retro Roadmap, which happened to have a post about the Cabazon Dinosaurs right on the front page. It was the classic concrete odd couple I remembered – predator and prey permananetly locked in unmoving tension – about 15 miles outside Palm Springs. I was irrationally excited.
Obviously, this would be a mandatory stop on the way to Star Wars Celebration Anaheim.
After closing time, you can’t go inside or see the new “museum” of animatronic dinosaurs, but you can walk around outside and even picnic under the belly of the Brontosaurus. So we took silly photos, and I did that thing you do as you get older (hey, let’s face it, I’m old enough to have childhood memories of dinosaurs) of telling Phillip exactly what did and didn’t use to be there.
Then we lumbered down the road to hunt for date shakes.
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I’m glad you found them again! It reminds me that I re-found Flintstoneland last week in an article. The pictures made it look so much smaller than I remembered it.
It probably is smaller than you remember! I’ve had that experience too. I also revisited a market once that I hadn’t been to since I was a child. I remembered the shelves being much higher. ;)
I lost a pair of dinosaurs. Found them en route to #swca (w help from @RetroRoadmap)! http://t.co/qFW1SSoGXQ #travel http://t.co/9rh4YBErem
It’s so cool when you can see something with grownup eyes that you once saw with childlike wonder.
Well, sometimes — like the Cabazon Dinos — it’s cool. Sometimes it can be a bit disappointing.
Glad it wasn’t extinction.
Very true! Nostalgia is a powerful thing.