Down the Dusty road, aka travels with Dusty.

Yesterday we left Camarillo and headed for Desert Center, a spot in the road east of Palm Springs. We met up with some motorhome friends and shared dinner in the balmy evening. Desert Center's current claim to fame is the General George Patton museum. We opted not to stop this trip.  General Patton established a training center for training troops in desert combat.

Historically, Desert Center was home to the headquarters of the Colorado River Aqueduct project. In the early 30's Henry Kaiser established the first health savings account by taking a nickel a week from each man's paycheck (no women working on the project in those days). Family members were covered with the addition of another nickel. Thus the beginning of Kaiser Permanente.

One of the largest open-pit iron mines is a few miles north of Desert Center. The ore was discovered during the construction of the aqueduct and the mine was operational until late 1980's.

Who knew?