March 4, 2023 Day 2 Chiriaco Summit, CA

The free campgrounds are located near I-10 and we can hear some traffic from it and the gas station located nearby. It wasn’t enough to disturb our sleep and we woke up about 7:00am PT with plans to visit the adjacent General Patton Museum soon after it opens at 9:30am.

The camp host here told Ron that most of the other campers are here for an ATV run in the desert. This looks like it’s a big sport here is the desert as we’ve seen them at most of the Arizona campgrounds and now here in California. Ron was able to get a photo of them heading out.

We caught up on our blogs since connectivity is good here and we are able to load pictures and post easily. After cleaning up, we drove the 1 block over to the museum and since we are seniors, we get a discount, costing $26 for the both of us. On the way, we wondered why they have a General Patton Museum located here in Chiriaco Summit, a tiny town with a post office slash store, a gas station, and a small coffee shop slash restaurant.

Before World War II, General Patton, ‘Old Blood and Guts, decided to establish a military training base here in Chiriaco Summit. Over a million soldiers received training here, learning how to survive tough weather conditions of extreme heat and cold. General Patton was a tough leader, but his troops probably benefited from it and became good soldiers. “A pint of sweat will save a Gallon of Blood” was one of his famous quotes.

Ron would love to metal detect the area because it’s obvious in the museum that some of the artifacts are indeed ‘hunted relics’ from the time when it was encamped. The museum was extremely interesting, and we spent a couple of hours hear, reading about his life and wars he fought in beginning with the Mexican uprising in the early 1900s to WWI and then WW II up to the time of his death in 1945 in a car accident while overseas. I think Ron’s favorite exhibit was the Sherman tank and this is the first time he got to see one in person.

The loss of life in WWII is truly astounding with an estimated number of 70 – 80 million soldiers and civilians who died during the 6-year period. The US alone had over 400,000 causalities. WWI was the war to end all wars but less than 30 years later, the world was engulfed in another war. Let’s hope and pray we never see another.