General Patton Memorial Museum — Attraction in Coachella

All I needed was a gas station and a bathroom for my bored 6yo girl, and look what we found! Tanks, a museum, air conditioning, friendly staff, a decently clean and well-maintained bathroom, and lunch fare that was a notch or two better than the "fast food" they unashamedly advertise.

Not only that, on our way out my daughter saw an ATV for the first time-- a pretty fancy, souped-up one at that. The owners happened to be sitting in the shade outside, right near the thing, and watched bemused as I answered my daughter's questions about it and pointed out which parts were what, were you sit, how you steer it, etc. Soon one of them stood & offered to let my daughter sit on it while I took her picture. We chatted a bit, but finally I had to pry my girl off that ATV and head for home. Very friendly locals.

I liked the tanks and the food and the cheap(ish) gas and the friendly folks and the air conditioning, but my daughter talked about that ATV for another 75 miles.

Surprise, surprise-- the emergency pit stop became the highlight of our trip (from Scottsdale to Los...

This museum is located literally in the middle of nowhere off of the 10 freeway in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The location, however, has significance. This area was where the troops in World War II trained for desert combat in North Africa.

This museum documents the training camps that were built in the area to support the training operations. There is also a huge relief map of the Mojave Desert that was used during planning for the California Aqueduct project. The highlight of the museum is found outside where armored vehicles and tanks from around the world are displayed including one that appears to be a tank converted into a fire fighting vehicle.

The museum can be gone through quickly in less than an hour so it might make an ideal stop if you or your kids want to get out and stretch your legs in the long desert segment between Phoenix and Los Angeles. If you have more time, you can easily spend 2-3 hours going through in depth. Be sure to talk to the people working there as they love to share the info they have...

A ton of tanks to view and a lot of gear and memorabilia. If you don't know much about General Patton there is plenty to learn. If you are a World War II buff like me I didn't learn much to new info until I got lucky and a group of army and marines came in and were able to talk all about the weapons. They let me follow them around a second time and they also took pictures for me.

Unfortunately a lot of the signs have been knocked down in front of the tanks. I was also disappointed that they put quite a number of hits quotes but only mention the one(or more) that got him in trouble but don't provide the quotes themselves. They also left out anything about his antisemitic comments after the war. (he said the camp survivors should be killed because they would never recover from their mental problems from the camps). Churchill and FDR also made similar comments unfortunately. My grandfather survived one of those camps. I bought a brick in his memory. Still be was an amazing man and person. Well worth the...