Just down the road from southern entrance of Joshua Tree Nat’l Park, there is a very, very small town of Chiriaco Summit that has the General S. Patton Memorial Museum. The nearest much bigger and known town is Indio, CA.
The museum is dedicated to the desert training that Gen Patton had set up there to prepare for fighting in the North African arena of World War II. It was due to Gen Patton that desert training was established in the military. The museum also had sections dedicated to each war since World War II, honoring the veterans.
As an Army Brat and growing up around tanks, even if I can’t ID them, I throughly enjoyed seeing them again. Took me back to my childhood on Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD where I lived right across the street from the Army Ordnance Museum. Which is sadly being moved to Ft. Lee, VA
I remember the weekends when they would open the post to civies and dad would be at one of the displays to answer questions about it. =) On the 4th of July, they would have Revolutionary War reenactments….and I didn’t even have to deal with the crowds…I lived there…grin