While planning the drives from major point to major point on our vacation, we knew there would have to be some corny yet amusing roadside attractions, a la South of the Border. I thought we were going to come across a lot more without having to re-direct our route, but sadly that wasn’t the case. Luckily we had the sense to drive out of our way to see the Cabazon Dinosaurs, which may look familiar to you as they were in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure:

What’s interesting about these dinosaurs now is that the people who most recently bought them are creationists, and they have books and stickers and free DVDs about creationism in the gift shop (which is inside Dinny, the brontosaurus). Inside of the T-rex was “information” on why dinosaurs didn’t exist… and you could also climb up into its mouth. We took one of the free DVDs to watch for later though we haven’t yet gotten around to actually watching it yet. My favorite part has to be their slogan, “By design, not by chance.” You can read much more about the dinosaurs here!

And then we made our way to Joshua Tree! I didn’t know much about it or what there was to do (though the Entourage episode where they go there was pretty great), but we ended up having a lot of fun and I camped for the first time! Though unfortunately it was so windy that our tent kept blowing so far over it was almost touching us! But other than that it was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend a trip there. We climbed a mountain and saw the moon rise (it was almost full and it was SO bright out at night!) and went to a cacti field and almost got lost in the desert mountains and walked some trails and saw lizards! I wish we could have had more time there!

Follow the link for more photos of the dinosaurs and from Joshua Tree!