On The Road Again — Chasing Pee-Wee’s Dinosaurs Down I-10

CABAZON, CA

I entered the Wheel Inn for the first and only time right around noon on a blazing hot day in June 2013.

My first impression was that the restaurant had seen better days. The concrete in front of the entrance was cracked. The simulated wood-grain on the table tops was faded and worn through in patches. It was obvious that the back dining room had been unused for a long time; the carpet was threadbare. The whole establishment projected a feeling of haven given up, i.e. “We’ve Been in Decline for A Long Time Now.”

I needed to use the restroom. A friendly waitress pointed towards the back of the building when I inquired regarding its whereabouts. I resisted the temptation to say:

“Large Marge sent me.”

*****

I had flown into Los Angeles the night before, and was driving south on I-10 somewhere past San Bernardino, when off to my left I saw a giant dinosaur peering at me. I blinked; I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a dinosaur in the desert before. Or anywhere else for that matter. As I passed by, I realized there was a second dinosaur.

No, they couldn’t be. No way.

I was on a tight schedule. I had to stop and do some work in Coachella and then El Centro (a few miles from the Mexican border), before heading to San Diego for the night. That’s a lot of miles for one day, and I really didn’t have time for sightseeing.

But life is short, and you have to have priorities.

I got off at the next exit and looped around to the northbound side and drove back.

Yes, they were.

The two dinosaurs I saw driving by were the same ones featured in the movie “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

What words describe the feeling you have when you’ve just crossed something off your Bucket List that you never realized was on it?

Or, to try to put it another way, that awareness that comes from seeing something in real life that you’ve seen on the screen, but skeptically half-assumed wasn’t real?

*****

The story of the Cabazon Dinosaurs starts with an entrepreneur named Claude Bell. An ex-Knott’s Berry Farm sculptor, Bell owned the Wheel Inn and built the dinosaurs to attract hungry travelers to his restaurant, using salvaged material from the construction of Interstate 10.

Bell named the brontosaurus “Dinny,” and his younger brother “Mr. Rex.” He originally planned to have their eyes light up at night and breath fire.

I suspect that Pee-Wee Herman would have approved of this wholeheartedly.

Partly through his Big Adventure, Pee-Wee was dropped off at the Wheel Inn by the ghost of trucker Large Marge. He washed dishes to pay for his dinner, and stayed up all night talking with Simone the Waitress while they sat inside the mouth of Mr. Rex. He inspired her to pursue her dreams before being chased off by her envious and violent boyfriend Andy.

*****

The Wheel Inn was indeed on its last legs, and closed for good just a few months after my visit. It was demolished a few years later. Despite the loss of the Inn, Dinny and Mr. Rex still attract tourists passing by on I-10.

Perhaps Claude Bell’s legacy, his dinosaurs, immortalized in Pee-Wee Herman’s movie, are also part of another, bigger, and continuing story: The Story of Roadside America.

They are relics from another time, before iThings, GPS, and Yelp reviews. When families traveling on the highway actually looked out the windows and saw America, not their DVDs.

When building giant steel-and-concrete dinosaurs to attract customers to a restaurant was a bold and awesome idea. The ultimate kitschy roadside attraction in a time when Big was always Better, that like drive-ins and bright flashing neon signs, are always in danger of becoming yet another extinct species.

But if Dinny and Mr. Rex ever do fall by the wayside, at least they will live on thanks to “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure:” that classic American road movie that all-but-shouted, there’s lots of weird and cool stuff to see, and colorful people to meet out there.

Don’t wait till someone steals your bike.