San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 4

Monday, November 9, 2009

We had to skip Mission Santa Cruz on our drive south, since it was only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday because of state budget cutbacks.  Santa Cruz is only about 3½ hours from where we live, so we should be able to see it fairly easily some other time.

We stopped next at Mission San Juan Bautista, which was in the town by the same name, near  Hwy 101 on the way to Monterey.  Of all the missions that we toured, San Juan Bautista is in a setting that most nearly approximates what it must have looked like in the 1800’s.  It sits on the edge of the small town, with no tall buildings in sight, facing one side of a grassy plaza.  The plaza is lined on two other sides by restored buildings of the period - houses, hotels and shops.  The 4^th side of the plaza overlooks an original portion of El Camino Real, the royal road that went from one mission to the other, San Diego to Sonoma.  There is a reproduction of one of the original bell markers on the Camino Real by the side of the road, which is set about 20’ below the level of the mission and the plaza.  The road is unpaved, and is bounded on the other side by farm fields with the mountains in the distance.  On the day we visited there, the fields were filled with workers, and it was easy to imagine how similar it must have looked in the 1800’s.  The inside of the mission has been beautifully restored and is a working Catholic church.  One of the largest mission church interiors, it has 3 aisles.  The gardens and courtyards were beautiful.  This was Judy’s favorite mission because of the location.


Day 4 Pictures - San Juan Bautista Mission

 After a wonderful visit to this very peaceful place, we drove on to Monterey, CA, the Monterey Pines RV Park and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel-By-The-Sea.  We unhitched the green machine at the park and drove to the mission, about ½  hour away.  We had been there two or three times before, but the place is worth many return visits.  It is near the heart of downtown Carmel in a lovely residential neighborhood.  The mission, which has been designated a Basilica, adjoins a working school and convent, has a large entrance courtyard, a larger interior courtyard, and a museum with many artifacts and many outbuildings.  Pope John Paul visited here is 1987, and the site where he said Mass is marked by a plaque.  Fr. Junipero Serra, the founder of most of the missions, is buried here.  Everything is beautifully restored, inside and out.


Day 4 Pictures - Carmel Mission (San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo)

We went to dinner at the Mission Ranch Restaurant nearby, owned by Clint Eastwood.  We had eaten there several times before and the food was excellent.  We have never seen Clint there, but we are told he drops in now and then.  There is a lively piano bar and a nice patio/ outside eating area overlooking the wetlands with spectacular sunsets over the Pacific.  It is one of our favorite restaurants.

Spring Training Trip - Missions - Day 8

Anotherbeautiful day with perfect weather.  Afterbreakfast, we drove to Mission Buenaventura, the 21^st and last missionon the mission tour we started 2 years ago. It is about 15 miles from Point Mugu Campground in downtown Ventura,easy to find with the GPS.  The missionis a working Catholic church and has been restored to its 1800’s appearance,with a beautiful courtyard, many statues and paintings in the church, and asmall museum full of artifacts.  We wereable to join a guided tour which had been set up ahead of time, so we learned alot of information about the mission that we would normally not haveheard.  We actually toured with about 304^th graders and some of their parents; California mission studiesare taught in that school year to all students.   We are really glad we did the mission tour –it’s such a big piece of California history.

Whilewe were walking back to the car, we noticed an olive oil store, All Olive,which looked interesting, so we went in and talked to the owner for a while.  There is another branch of the store in ElDorado Hills, not too far from where we live. We bought some delicious balsamic vinegar and basil oil in bottles thatcan be refilled at a reduced rate.  Thestore was beautifully set up with lots of dips, oils and vinegars to taste andtry out.

Wethen drove to the Ventura Harbor and had lunch at Andria’s Seafood Restaurantand Market – fried halibut and chips, clam chowder and a shrimp tostada –delicious!  We then walked around theshops in the harbor area, looking at all the beautiful boats moored there,meanwhile looking for chocolate chip cookies. We found the cookies and got mochas also.

 

Atthe entrance of the harbor, we toured the Channel Islands National Park visitor’scenter.  The 5 Channel Islands, San Miguel,Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara lie just off the coast ofVentura County.  They are protected areasthat have several species of birds, plants and animals that are found nowhereelse, as well as huge nesting areas for migratory birds and an enormous rookeryfor seals and sea lions.  You can get boator airplane trips out to the islands, and even camp there overnight, but wedidn’t have time for that on this trip. The visitor’s center had a tidepool with 3 or 4 huge sea stars and aspiny lobster, as well as other kinds of fish and smaller sea stars.  We also discovered there that there are twoother Channel Islands nearby which are not open to the public, San Nicholas andSan Clemente, both owned and used by the U.S. Navy.

Onthe way back to the RV, we stopped at the Navy Exchange (BX) for some ice andpizza for dinner, and watched an old movie on TV (Close Encounters of theThird Kind).  Actually, this was oursecond movie of the day – this morning before we left the RV we watched most ofGiant, made in 1956 and James Dean’s last movie.

Day 8 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Missions - Day 4

Weslept in and ate a late breakfast “out” this morning at the Apple FarmRestaurant in San Louis Opbispo, a favorite of ours from previous visits.  The weather was cooler than yesterday andsomewhat overcast.  We then toured themission as part of our California mission tour. We had actually been here before, Pat and I once and I was here once bymyself while Pat was attending a Coastwalk board meeting.

MissionSan Louis Opispo de Tolosa is still aworking Catholic church, as are several of the other 21 missions stretchingfrom San Diego to Sonoma.  The church,courtyard, gardens and compound has been fully restored and retrofitted for anypossible earthquakes.  The interior ofthe church is fairly plain and primitive, not over-decorated like some of theother missions on our tour. The mission setting is beautiful, set along SanLuis Creek in the middle of the city. There is a small museum and gift shop; entrance to the mission is freewith a donation box available.

Afterwardswe walked around the city, bought lattes and window shopped, then drove to alocal mall and shopped some more.  Afterbuying a few groceries, we came back to the RV, worked on this blog and thepictures (Pat), read for a while and took a nap (me), and hitched up the VW inpreparation for leaving tomorrow morning. It is supposed to start raining tonight, so we will eat dinner in.

Day 4 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Missions - Day 2

We slept in, ate breakfast and headed out tothe Santa Cruz Mission and found it in two locations, separated by one block ofresidential houses and a school.  Of the19 missions we have visited in California, this was the only one that isdivided by two factions – that of the Catholic Church and that of the State ofCalifornia.

The church’s location, on part of theoriginal mission grounds, is a small-scale replica of what it is supposed thatthe original mission church looked like, plus a small side wing containing oldvestments, chalices and religious pictures, along with a gift shop and a smallcourtyard garden.  The chapel isundecorated except for some religious statues and small stations of the cross.

The plaza/park in front of the chapel iswooded and grassy, with a fountain, paths and benches.  At one end of the plaza is a new Catholicchurch, the Church of the Holy Cross.  Itwas not open at the time we were there.

The State of California’s location, a StateHistoric Park, is one block away, also on part of the original mission grounds.  It consists of an original adobe residencebuilding, a gift shop, state park offices and a grassy and shaded courtyardpicnic area with a “beehive” oven.  Theadobe, built in the 1700’s by Indian labor, was used to house Indianfamilies.  Later, after secularization ofthe missions, Californio families were housed there, and later, anIrish-American family from Kilkenny lived there.  Nine or ten different rooms were in variousstages of restoration and remodeling, a result of all of the differentresidents’ needs at the time.

The use (and ill use) of the local Indians bythe padres was described on several of the informational plaques throughout theadobe in no uncertain terms.  We feelthat because of the historical accuracy of this information, at least at thismission, no mention was made at the church’s location of the existence of thestate park, just one block away. Luckily, the Santa Cruz tourist information pamphlet that we had showedboth locations on its map.

We went to Natural Bridges State Park on theocean nearby to see if any Monarch butterflies were still there from the annualmigration.  Because of the unseasonablymild weather this winter, most of them were already heading back to Canada forthe summer.  Another generation of themwill be back in Santa Cruz next October, ready to spend another winter on thecoast.  A few Monarchs were still hangingaround today (there is always somebody who doesn’t get the message), so Pat gotsome pictures of them.

We then walked along the coastal cliffs northof the Santa Cruz pier and watched many surfers ignoring the “EXTREMELY HAZARDOUSCONDITIONS!  DO NOT ENTER THE WATER!”signs.  Apparently there wereexceptionally high tides today and the waves rolling in from Japan were huge - awesometo us.  The warning signs probablybrought out more surfers than usual – there were a lot of them out there.

We had a wonderful late lunch at The Crow’sNest, a restaurant right next to the East Harbor in Santa Cruz, while wewatched the boat traffic in and out of the harbor.  Since there is a large breakwater on bothsides of the harbor entrance, the waves were not as large there.

After 4 hours rest back at the RV, we drovesouth to Moss Landing, CA through a clear and cold moonlit night for dinner atPhil’s Fish Market, a great seafood restaurant we had been to before.  After red and white clam chowder, seafoodquesadillas and fried clam strips, we are back at the RV for the evening.

Day 2 Pictures

San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 3

After the second and last day of the Coastwalk Board Meeting, we left Sebastopol around noon for the the two south bay missions - San Jose and Santa Clara.

We arrived at the San Jose Mission around 2:00 PM which is actually in Fremont, adjacent to San Jose. Mission San Jose, the 14th Mission is the latest Mission to have its church restored. It was founded in 1797 and like many of the other Missions fell into neglect over the years. The restoration completed in 1985 cost over $5 million dollars and closely reesembles the Mission as it looked in 1809. It is also a working Catholic church seving the Fremont community.

Day 3 Pictures - San Jose Mission

The Mission at Santa Clara (Santa Clara de Asis) is the 8th Mission and is on the camapus of Santa Clara University, the first college of higher learning in California. The Mission was transferred to the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1851by the Dominican Bishop who could no longer afford to maintain the Mission. Since then, Santa Clara University has become one of the top universities in the country. It has a full-time enrollment of about 5,000 students and tuition costs $35,000 per year with room and board another $11,000. It is a beautiful campus and a great school, but it looks like you either have to be very rich or very poor to go there, but in any case, I am sure you would have to be a good student to stay there.

Today, the Mission church serves as the student chapel and is the spiritual heart of the university. And again, like other Missions it has been rebuilt and restored over the years. There are however, some initial Mission walls remaining and the bell tower holds the original bells sent from Spain when the original Mission was constructed.

Day 3 Pictures - Santa Clara De Asis Mission

Arriving back at the RV Park around 6:00PM, we ate take-out BBQ in the RV and watched the rest of the Eagles-Cowboys game on TV. Not a good game, but the BBQ was good.

We break camp early tomorrow morning and head for Monterey with two Missions enroute (San Juan Batista and Santa Cruz) and another (Carmel) after we sent up camp at the Naval Post Graduate School RV Park in Monterey.

San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 2

Pat attended the first day of the Coastwalk Board Meeting in Sebastopol and Judy went shopping. After dropping Pat off at the meeting, Judy went to the factory outlet mall in Petaluma and bought a few more things for the upcoming cruise.

The meeting was over at 2:00 PM and we then traveled to San Rafael (:45 minute drive from Sebastopol) to tour the San Rafael Mission (San Rafael Arcangel- Mission 20). This Mission was originally established in 1812 as a sanitarium and hospital for people housed at the Mission in San Francisco. Due to its success, it was raised to full Mission status in 1817. The Mission chapel is a replica of the original chapel, rebuilt on the same site in 1949 by William Randolph Hearst after the original buildings were demolished in 1870 for firewood. It is adjacent to a large working Catholic Church and school with what appears to be a diverse ethnic congregation.

This evening, we went to the Coastwalk Executive Director’s house in Sebastopol for dinner with the Coastwalk Board of Directors.

The weather has been great so far and the itinerary timing worked O.K. Tomorrow will be a busy day with Day 2 of the Coastwalk Board meeting until noon then a road trip to San Jose and Santa Clara and back for two more missions.

Day 2 Pictures - San Rafael Arcangel Mission

San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 1

Well, we are on the road after a delayed start. The goal was to get going by 8:00 AM but it was 10:00 AM before we were ready to go. We then discovered we had an electrical connection problem with the towed VW – nothing too serious other than the brake lights and turn signals on the VW wouldn’t work when being towed.

We then went to the RV dealer in Sacramento where the tow package was installed. It was a connector problem and they were able to fix it, but it took another hour or so to install new connectors. We finally left Sacramento at 12:30 PM for Sonoma. We then stopped along the way at our first Mission – San Francisco Solano (Sonoma) – Mission 21.

This Mission was the nothernmost CA Mission and was established in 1823. It was the site of the "Bear Flag Revolt" and the effort to establish the CA Republic in 1846. The Mission is now part of the Sonoma State Historic Park. The present Mission Chapel was rebuilt in 1840 after the original building was destroyed in a storm.

We had a nice visit, then traveled to the RV Park in Rohnert Park, arriving about 4:30 PM. Due to the delays, we canceled the trip to the San Francisco Mission and met Kevin for dinner at Angelino’s Restaurant in Sausalito instead.

Day 1 Pictures - Sonoma Mission (San Francisco Solano)