We kicked off Soul’s birthday celebration with a stop at Robolights in Palm Springs (I learned about it from this cool blog; it’s my fave site to gather ideas of things to do in California). Robolights is this insane art/light installation by Kenny Irwin and he’s been doing this since he was a kid. The whole thing is done at his father’s residence and filled with about 9 million lights, lots of robots and random bits of discarded items put together to create sculptures. It’s pretty amazing how his parents just let him build on their property and keep adding to it. Obviously, they were really supportive of allowing him to use his imagination to bring things to life.

It was filled with lots of strange things, like robots with skulls all over the base, or a clown robot coming out of a tower, and a carousel of toilets. This is just a short list of the weird things there; the list could really go on and on. Take note, if you don’t like clowns, this place might not be for you. Some things freaked out the kids, but they loved looking at all the lights. Their favorite parts were Darth Vader things they spotted here and there. There’s so much to see there!

We went mid-week and it’s a suggested $5 donation to enter. It wasn’t busy at all, and took a little over an hour to walk through. On the weekend though, we were told that it gets pretty packed and it’s like a crawl getting through there. One Saturday last year, 2,000 people went through in one night … crazy! Now, every time we see a house lit up like crazy, the girls say, “It’s robolights!” And I just added some more lights inside our house yesterday, and they were all “It’s robolights inside! It’s robolights inside!”

When we are in the area again, we want to drive by the house to see what it looks like without all the lights. The lights get put up for the holidays, and get taken down after, but all the robots and sculptures (like the toilet carousel) stay up year round. I’m so curious what that looks like. It must be interesting to be one of their neighbors. If you’re in the area, definitely check this out. The best way to describe Robolights … it is bizarrely fabulous.