When the Swallows Come Back

Welcome!  Any guesses where we’re going today?

                             
A couple of lovely, but mostly unhelpful, hints.

 

 

 

            Are you listening?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our adventure today will be: Mission San Juan Capistrano!  I vaguely remember going here as a kid.  I couldn’t even tell you if it was with my parents or if it was a school field trip.  Mom, care to chime in?  It’s a beautiful place though, just a few minutes up the road from us now and the gardens are amazing.

                           
Here comes the history lesson.  The mission was (re-)founded in 1776 by Father Junipero Serra, a rather prominent figure in California during that period.  From the mission’s website, “The idea was to make colonial outposts called missions . . . (which) would be a center of learning and training of Native peoples. The Spanish government and Catholic Church wanted to convert the people to Christianity, train them in Spanish or European lifestyle, so that the Native peoples would eventually live in towns and pay taxes, like good Spanish citizens.”  That more or less worked out for a while and in 1806 they built a great stone cathedral at Mission San Juan Capistrano.  The cathedral stood for all of six years before it was destroyed by an earthquake and never rebuilt.  After that things went downhill for a while until, eventually (skipping over lots of stuff you don’t care about), it became a “historical site”.

And here we are!

                       
This is the Father Serra (guy who founded the mission) Chapel, the oldest building in continuing public use in CA and the only existing chapel where Father Serra is known to have celebrated Mass.  (I tell you these things just in case you’re ever on Jeopardy.  If “Father Serra” is the answer to the Final Jeopardy question, I expect a cut.)

We enjoyed everything about our tour; the building and the grounds are both exquisite.  So much so that I took too many pictures that I want to share with you.  So, this will be part one.  Part two will get to the really fun stuff; trust me on this.

               

So goodnight for now, but check back soon!  (P.S. That’s a very cooperative hummingbird!)