Cabazon Ca

Not long ago, an irate customer expressed his displeasure with the tiny Cabazon Water District by dropping a live rattlesnake through the mail slot. "It was pretty good size, too, slithered right under the desk," said R.D. Cash, president of the water board. A thick pane of glass, dubbed "the rattle trap," was swiftly installed over the slot to prevent any further reptile deliveries. "No matter what you do, you'll always have irate customers," Cash said.

Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion. The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists. Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.

The first time I saw the dinosaurs of Cabazon, looming like a kitschy desert mirage on the north side of Interstate 10, I was a young news reporter racing to cover the Liberace deathwatch in Palm Springs.

An Indian-owned casino in Cabazon near Palm Springs is going Vegas, opening a $250-million resort and spa designed by the architects of Universal CityWalk and the luxury Bellagio resort in Sin City. The new Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, about 20 minutes west of Palm Springs, is aiming at a younger, hipper crowd and has enlisted N9NE Group to "clone" its popular Rain dance club at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.