ROAD TRIP! I was doing research for a World War II story, so I decided to head out into the desert and visit two of Southern California's best WWII Museums. The thing about a ROAD TRIP is you're never quite sure what you'll see on the way...

	The Palm Springs Air Museum has a great collection of planes, fighters, and bombers - old and new.	There's an F-14 Tomcat out in the parking lot.
I wasn't the only visitor that day.	This roadrunner was checking out the bombers.
		There was a big exhibit on Bob Hope, who had recently passed away.
This is a U.S. Army Weasel, a small tracked vehicle that could haul a handful of guys and their gear over land and snow.		This was a cool cutaway model of a WWII submarine. Check below for close-ups of the fine detail work.

		The cockpit of a bomber. You could pay a couple bucks for a walk-through tour.
The nose gun.	That's my feet walking through the bomb bay.	The roof gun.
The wing.	One of the side guns from the inside...	And the outside.
The ball turret. One of the most dangerous places on the bomber.	Not much room for a guy in there, either.	The day's big event was a flight by a beautiful well-cared-for mustang.
This guy kept it in good shape.
	Next stop - The Patton Tank Museum.	The museum is built on the old desert training grounds Patton established in WWII.
Patton was the only General that could beat Erwin Rommel, the German master of tank warfare.	Tanks from all eras were on display here.
		Several had hunks taken out of them from direct hits.
It takes quite a blast to take a chunk that big out of this kind of armor.	Two lucky shots.	Down the barrel of a tank.
The museum inside had all kinds of wartime clothing, weapons, and militaria.	The most interesting thing to me was a collection of money they had.	The Japanese Government issued new money to provinces they conquered. They'd print it up in advance so it'd be ready on invasion day.
The Allies secretly counterfeited the Occupation Currency, and used it to fund guerillas to fight against the Japanese!	Pretty good trick, huh?	Hard to tell the real from the fake...
They also had a clever propaganda tool - a leaflet that looked like Japanese yen on one side...	... But had a surrender message printed on back. Suckers!	This was the coolest prize of all. After Pearl Harbor, everybody thought the Japanese would take over Hawaii. But if they got the banks, they could use the captured U.S. Currency to screw with the economy and markets.
They immediately printed up special HAWAII dollars. Your monitor isn't screwed up - the bills were black and white with brown serial numbers and seals. Note that the word "HAWAII" is printed on the right.	If Hawaii WAS ever captured, they would have just declared the Hawaii dollars valueless. The Japanese couldn't use them to do damage to the American Economy, or for counterfeiting.	They also had Iraqi bills from the first Gulf War.
Kind of cool, I guess.	After the Patton Museum, I headed north into Joshua Tree National Park to watch the sunset.
(That bright dot is Mars.)

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