Rainbow Rock Shop

Find giant dinosaur roadside attractions guarding a garden of petrified wood, rocks, and other souvenirs at the Rainbow Rock Shop in Holbrook, Arizona.

Petrified wood shops are popular roadside stops in eastern Arizona. It makes sense as it’s a commodity that is prolific in the area, especially within the popular Petrified Forest National Park. What is petrified wood? Petrified wood is a type of fossilized wood that transforms over millions of years. Through a process called mineralization, organic matter in the wood gradually gets replaced by minerals, often silica or quartz, preserving the original structure and cellular details of the wood. It is illegal to take specimens out of the park, so it’s only natural that shops surround the area that sell petrified wood of all shapes and sizes to tourists who want to take home a souvenir. And many of those shops do anything they can to lure you from the road and make sure their shop stands out above the rest.

Dinosaur statues are a popular theme for these roadside attractions, and shops like Stewart’s Petrified Wood and Painted Desert Indian Center both erected giant dinosaurs outside to attract passersby. But one of the most recognizable examples is right in the middle of Holbrook’s downtown Route 66 area at the Rainbow Rock Shop (also known as Indian Rock Shop).

In front of this Holbrook store are big cartoonish dinos that peek out over the chain link fenced in yard that surrounds the shop. Owner Adam Luna spend more than twenty years crafting the eleven dinosaur roadside attractions out of cement and reinforcing rods. They are popular backdrops for fun Route 66 photos, but be warned that the shop owner may or may not charge you $1 for each pic with them.

Of course as with any rock shop, the dinosaurs are just a front for the store. Step inside to find rocks, fossils, geodes, and petrified wood of various sizes along with souvenirs of all types, all available for sale.