Chiriaco Summit and the General Patton Museum

On my way to Quartzsite, I stopped for the night at Chiriaco Summit. This is a place with a family owned gas station, cafe, and museum between Indio and Blythe in the desert just off of I-10. They also have an area where they allow free dry camping. Since I wound up leaving late, and getting a lot more traffic because of leaving late, I got there after dark and misunderstood the signs and wound up spending the night in the museum parking lot, but no one complained. I had a hamburger and fries in their cafe, quite reasonable for a cafe burger but nothing special.

The museum is dedicated to General Patton, who had a desert training area for World War Two nearby. A bit over half of it is General Patton and that era, and they have other military stuff from WWI to present. They charge $5 for admission (with some exceptions and discounts), and besides the inside exhibits they have a large "tank garden" with tanks and a few other vehicles on display. I think one of the tanks was a Sherman, but I didn't see the type of tank used early in WWII by the US. Some of the tanks had what looked like shell damage, but they may have been used as targets.