Like every other California 4th grader, I did my mission report back in the day, complete with a cardboard-and-popsicle-stick model of San Miguel Archangel. But until last year, as a 31-year-old woman, I had never visited a California mission...which seems kind of bizarre. But then, I managed to reach the ripe age of 30 spending at least 25 years of my life within a few hours of Yosemite National Park without seeing that, so...
Yes, folks, it's true: I've lived in England twice and haven't even seen half of my home state.
So today, on my way to Monterey, I saw the signs for San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist) and thought, "Heh. Maybe on the way home..."
And that's just what I did. After eating my picnic lunch in my car sitting in a parking lot near the beach on a very cool and overcast day, I headed back towards the San Joaquin Valley, making one small detour.
The town of San Juan Bautista is small, and a large portion of its downtown area is historic (and therefore very fun to photograph). The mission sits at the edge of the town near the Camino Real, which was a road used to get from one mission to the next.
Mission San Juan Bautista is larger than the only other mission I've visited, Sonoma. The lady in the main visitor's entrance informed me that Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was filmed there, but I haven't seen that. Suppose now I'll have to rent it.
I parked my car near the mission and walked around the small downtown area first. It's tiny and a wee bit run-down, but the businesses there seem to be doing okay despite San Juan Bautista's proximity to...nothing much. I got a nice crop of sign pictures to add to my collection.
Random sidewalk mosaic...
Even though I'm not remotely Catholic, and I have a few beefs with the Vatican regarding how they treat women, women's issues, LGBT and priests who molest children (don't get me started, please), I still have an appreciation for the history and pageantry that goes into Catholocism. From a purely scholarly standpoint, it's quite fascinating...and I felt a wee bit of Catholic guilt for wearing a tank top into the church. I didn't get struck by lightning.
But then I figured that I've never murdered, committed adultery, molested a child, and I've led my life with a pretty strong moral code for being Pagan Megan...so God and I are good.
A small chapel.
The wood showing through the plaster on the walls.
Very old wood floors...watch your step.
My music history professor at CSU Chico, Dr. Rothe (he always wore Birkenstocks, usually with Mickey Mouse socks, even on rainy days) tried to teach us how to read medieval music notation. He was unsuccessful.
This is carved from wood (looks sort of like stone in the photo).
This cactus tree was enormous.
A hen and about eight chicks! They were so cute, and Mama was clucking all over them.
The main church was quite lovely. I turned the flash on my camera off because I figured I could be forgiven a tank top, so long as I wasn't obnoxiously letting the flash go off all over the place. Without a flash, some of the pictures aren't as great as they could be.
Soldiers killed in action.
After wandering through, I left the mission and wandered around the outer garden, near the Plaza made famous by Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Vertigo." From there, it was a short walk back to my car, with a quick detour down one block of shops I had skipped the first time around.
I stood here, looking at the view and thought, "Damn, I love California."
You can't go in the cemetary, so I took these through the gate.
FABULOUS old tree!
And yet, I still love California...*sigh*
Looking back at the mission.
Seeing as how we're not an east coast state, or say, England, having a building this old in California is actually quite impressive...
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