Spring Fling 2026 - Day 10: Patton Museum at Fort Knox, KY

 We are not too far from the outskirts of Louisville, KY so we drove the CR-V to see the offerings at the George S Patton Leadership Museum at Fort Knox.

Fort Knox is an active army post but you do not need to clear security to see the museum. You used to have to go through that bureaucracy but now they've made it so that the museum is outside the controlled areas of the post. 

I was embarrassed to learn that Fort Knox is no longer the home of the army's armor school.  They apparently move that to Fort Benning, GA in 2011!

The post is now home to the army's recruiting command and the ROTC command, hence all the ROTC leadership information and emphasis within the Patton museum.  Seeing the ROTC displays confused me at first. 

Of course, there were tanks and armored vehicles on display since the primary focus of the museum is Patton.  There's no fee for admittance to the museum. 

As usual, here's some of the stuff that caught my eye.

Patton was part of the Army first 

motorized attack.

During large scale train exercises...

I'd always read about the general's matched pearl handled pistols that he wore with his uniform.  Turns out, that's not the case, they were two different pistols and they were ivory handled. 

General Patton often said his one true friend was his dog Willie, who accompanied him throughout the fighting in Europe.  I found it amusing that, per protocol, Willie "outranked" then Lieutenant General Patton (3 stars) when Willie was issued his ID tag for his collar.

Yep, armored vehicles and tanks were displaced along with small arms from both sides.

Armored Artillery 

Lee Medium Tank, used early in the war

Patton's home in the field

Sherman Tank

Some memorabilia:

All the major commands that Patton commanded while in command of the US 3rd Army:

No, the WTF initials in the flag below do not mean what they mean these days.  Patton commanded the Western Task Force during Operation Torch, the US invasion of North Africa.

I am sure you heard or read about the incident where Patton lost control and slapped a couple of enlisted men who were suffering from shell shock. The general seemed to always be in some kind of trouble with the brass but the fact that he got results and fought always counted for more as well. 

I then learned about the last disciplinary action taken on Patton by then Supreme Commander General Eisenhower:

Not too much later from when he was relieved of command of Third Army, Patton was injured in a traffic accident involving an Army two and a half ton truck and a limousine similar to the one below in which he was riding.

Patton suffered spinal injuries along with other injuries and would end up dying of a aneurysm soon after the accident.  There was doubt before his death that he would ever walk again so I guess it's just as well he went out that way.  

Outside the museum, there were three tanks on display. I'm only posting the one showing the M60 Patton tank which saw service in the '80s when I was posted to West Germany while on active duty. I saw many of them during my time with the First Armored Division.

After the Patton museum, we drove further into Louisville so that Martha could tour the Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs. Parking was a nightmare as there was a horse race going on, so I just dropped her off at the entrance and went off to have lunch at a quiet park while she did her stuff.  She will be blogging about it next week.

We return to the campsite with no further issues except occasional examples of idiot drivers on narrow country roads.  The weekenders are showing up and I expect all the sites will be full by tomorrow.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 9: Laurel Branch COE Camping

A short drive today, only 242 miles.  We got out of Illinois first before tanking up the VRRV and saved .76 cents/gallon for 87 Octane gasoline by buying it in Indiana!

The last 22 miles or so were on a series of narrow two lane county roads, and we got to the campground with no issues except some slight wandering around due to minimal signage.

We're in the Laurel Branch area of the Rough River Recreation Area run by the COE: Corps of Engineers.

Our site isn't waterside but just a very short walk away:

Unlike other COE sites, this is a river, not a reservoir created by a dam managed by the Corps of Engineers.  Still, pretty nice so far.  It helps that we're in a warming trend finally in the next couple of days should be nice and warm. 

While walking around checking out the area I found the Rim Rock trail, The trail header which is located really close to our campsite. 

It's just a small loop but I could not find some of it so I ended up returning the same way I went in. 

Yep, some shitbird defaced the sign but you get the idea:

Nearby the signs and directly overhead, were some colorful rocks basking in the sun-dappled shade:

We rested the rest of the afternoon away, some tourist destinations planned for tomorrow so stay tuned.

Deployed the gazebo and the RV awning to let them dry out from Tuesday's rain.

Spring Fling 2026 - Days 7&8: Rain and Chores

Tuesday, May 5

We spent the day inside the VRRV, it rained on and off most of the day and night.  I think the high temperature was 52°F.  We did get some camping logistical planning down and we have a plan for campsites and visits with friends for the rest of the month.

Wednesday, May 6

Rains tapered off towards dawn and we finally saw the sun in the late morning.  Today we drove the CR-V into the town of Centralia, IL for chores.

Laundry got done, just a small load.

Groceries were procured, just a few items.

A different doorknob was bought at the local Ace Hardware, to make it easier to open the bathroom door in the VRRV.  The common style round doorknob was proving hard to turn from the inside and in my case my knuckles would sometimes hit the door trim, painful.

Now it's a push down lever handle on both sides, much more ergonomic.  I had to do a little trimming of the existing hole in the door to accommodate the slightly larger mechanism but it worked out.

This was the sunset we got today, our last day here at the Coles Creek COE campground.

Tomorrow, we head into Kentucky!

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 6: Churchill Museum

We are now in Illinois after driving 320 mi from the Kansas City, Mo area.

Along the way we took a slight detour to the small college town of Fulton, Illinois.  British prime minister Winston Churchill made a famous speech here on March 5, 1946, a speech where the phrase: "An Iron Curtain has descended across the continent" effectively marked the startup the Cold War.

Westminster College had invited Churchill to speak there, and when President Truman endorsed the idea, the former prime minister accepted.  Truman would accompany Churchill to the event.

The church at Westminster College is the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 17th-century London church designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It was dismantled stone-by-stone, shipped across the Atlantic, and reassembled in Fulton, Missouri, to serve as a memorial to Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech.

The museum is located below the church: 

Martha and I toured the exhibits which were laid out chronologically ending with the speech event in 1946. The life of Churchill was covered pretty well I thought and I learned a few things that I had not known from my previous readings about him and World War II. 

These are the things that caught my eye or that I learned, there was of course a lot more information in history about the quite accomplished life of  Winston Churchill!

This is how Churchill became a known public figure:

Sir Winston Churchill was a direct descendant and the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, John Spencer-Churchill. He was born at the family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace, in 1874.

Martha got a chance to pose at Sir Winston Churchill's desk: 

We also visited the church, which is accessible via a set of winding stairs from the museum:

Info on the church and it's rebirth in Fulton, MO:

I found this graphic interesting, it shows London in 1945 depicting all the bomb damage suffered by the city during the war. If you look for the soul spot of color you can see where the church was located back then.

Outside the church, there are five pieces of the Berlin Wall that were shipped to Fulton for the museum:

After we left Fulton, it was about 2 and 1/2 hours and we crossed into Illinois and I now camping for a couple of days or so at a US Army Corps of Engineers campground near Carlyle, Illinois.