Heading west on I-10, we got off the freeway at Chiriaco Summit to visit the General George Patton Memorial Museum. General Patton established the Desert Training Center here in March 1942 under orders by the War Department.
The purpose of the center was to train troops for desert warfare because the Army believed that American forces would be required to fight the German enemy in North Africa.
The Desert Training Center grew from General Patton's headquarters at Camp Young to include 10 other camps that trained nearly 1 million American servicemen and women. It was the world's largest military installation, both in size and population.
Statue of General Patton outside the Museum:
Just inside the museum, is the Big Map, whose purpose was to help keep engineers and construction workers on track as they dug a canal through the desert and over the mountains to bring water to Southern California...the 242-mile-long Colorado River Aqueduct from Lake Havasu to Diamond Valley Lake in southwest Riverside County. The Big Map weights close to 5 tons and is designed to come apart like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
The Big Map:
On the museum grounds are quite a few tanks, some of which are pictured below:
Sherman M4 Medium Tank:
Stuart M5A1 Light Tank:
Patton M-60 Medium Tank:
After finishing at the museum, we got back on I-10 and took the next exit, the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. We stopped at the Cottonwood Visitors Center where I bought a book on the geology of the park (we didn't have to pay the entrance fee because Earl has a Golden Age Passport).
After leaving the visitors center, we stopped along the road and took a walk along a wash where there were all kinds of wildflowers in bloom:
We also saw a lizard on our walk:
Another stop along the way:
Mohave Yucca:
Two deserts -- the Colorado Desert and the Mojave Desert -- come together in Joshua Tree National Park. The Colorado Desert, which occupies the eastern half of the park, is the lower of the two and is dominated by creosote bushes and small stands of ocotillo and jumping cholla cactus (they don't actually "jump," but will stick to you like industrial-strength velcro if you brush up next to them).
Ocotillo at Ocotillo Patch:
Cholla at Cholla Cactus Garden:
The Mohave Desert, which occupies the western half of the park, is higher, moister, and slightly cooler and is the habitat of the Joshua tree:
The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is a giant member of the lily family and is in a subgroup of flowering plants which also includes grasses and orchids. The park also contains some of the most interesting geologic displays found in California's deserts...exposed granite monoliths and rugged mountains of twisted rock testify to the power of the earth forces that shaped this land:
View from our campsite:
Maxx likes to climb rocks:
And so does this guy:
We drove to Key View, a scenic overlook of valley, mountain, and desert from its elevation of 5,185 feet. From Key View, you can see the Salton Sea, Indio, and Palm Springs -- when it's clear. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear on the day we were there -- smog from Los Angeles clouded the view.
The small line of hills in the center
of the picture is the San Andreas Fault:
Note snow capped peak in the background:
No comments:
Post a Comment