On our way to Arizona

On our 7 hour drive to Mesa Arizona, we listened to podcasts and saw lots of desert. One interesting stop was Camp Young, the 1942-44 headquarters of the Desert Training Center (also known as California–Arizona Maneuver Area (CAMA)). It is in California, Arizona, and Nevada near Pomona, California and stretching to 50 miles from Phoenix, in the Mojave Desert and Sonoran. A 18,000-square-mile camp created by General George S. Patton Jr. to prepare over 1 million troops for harsh desert combat in North Africa during World War II (living in tents without electricity or running water under extreme desert heat). It is now the General Patton Memorial Museum.

As we crossed the border we saw a back up for many miiles coming into California through border control. U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in Blythe, California, where agents manage traffic checkpoints and patrol southeast California, northwest Arizona, and the entire state of Nevada. There are often Fentanyl and Meth interception and sadly human smuggling busts.

We tried to let the beauty of the mountains and the quiet of the desert be our focus as we were going to visit good friends Michele and Chris Keith and Cindy and John Alfonso.Read more