San Antonio Missions

With Terry out of town Wednesday I was on my own and came up with a whole bunch of ideas to entertain myself.  Of course, entertaining myself has rarely been a problem for me.  My problem is that there just isn’t enough time in the day or every place we happen to be to do everything I want to do.  I wasn’t sure if I’d take this day off and just relax with a book or whether I’d play tourist …. again.  Being tourist won out.   My mission for the day ….. to check out one of the San Antonio Missions or maybe two of them.

Mission Concepcion

San Antonio is home to the Missions National Historical Park.  Within a few miles there are four missions and to top that off there is no fee.  it is part of the National Park Service with guides at a couple of them and even a Visitor’s Center for more information.  If you're interested in more information about the missions, click on the link above.  Some websites indicate there are five missions and not just four.  I may have missed one!

Mission Concepcion

Mission Concepcion

The first mission is just 2.8 miles south of the Alamo so it’s not a great distance from town.  My plan was to visit only the closest one, Mission Concepcion.  My trusty little Garmin indicated Mission Road was a mere 12 miles from our RV park so once rush hour traffic was over, I was on my way.

We’ve  been to bunches of old cathedrals, churches, missions and religious places all over the world.  They all have their own history.  These missions were clean and gorgeous and not filled with a lot of religious relics like many we’ve seen.  I’m not sure what I was expecting on my tour of the missions but it was really surprised and impressed with what I saw.  The best word I can think of is --  WOW.

Mission Concepcion was the first place I stopped.  Like several of the other missions, this one was transferred from East Texas to this location in 1731.  According to what I read the missions all look pretty much the same today as they did in that time.  This was a gorgeous mission and after checking it out I decided I just had to see Mission San Jose.  It was only another 2.8 miles down Mission Road and there was no way I could pass it up since I was so close. 

Mission San Jose

The San Jose Mission had been described as the “Queen of Missions” and it was definitely huge.  I could certainly see why it was called the Queen.  The mission was like a fort with walls for protection and many rooms around the perimeter.  The only trouble I had at this place was getting people to get out of the way so I could take pictures.

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose

At this point I had walked through two missions but there were just two more on Mission Rd.  I knew if I didn’t check out the next one I would always regret it.  So, a little south I went to take a look at Mission San Juan Capistrano.  Just like Concepcion this mission was also moved from East Texas to its current location on San Antonio River’s east bank in 1731. 

Mission San Juan Capistrano

The last mission in this area was the earliest of the missions.  Mission Espada was founded in 1690 and moved to it’s current location, again, in 1731.

Mission Espada

All the missions were different but they were all awesome.  I couldn’t imagine just visiting one when there was no more than 3 miles between each of them.  The missions were scattered a short distance from each other.  In their time they were all pretty self sufficient and supported the nearby settlements with fields, trades and livestock.

This was a wonderful day!  I think I made the right choice and had a great time.  Next on my list wasn't as much fun.  I needed to figure out how to get Terry out of Portland and back to where Duchess and I were.  I already knew that was not going to be an easy task.  March definitely is not the month to be any place without reservations and that doesn’t matter whether you’re on the road or in the air.  I spent the rest of the day on Wednesday calling the different airlines to check loads on their flights. Almost everything was sold out.  I knew it was going to be bad but then, I got excited when I found an early morning United flight to San Francisco with 7 open seats.  However, the excitement soon disappeared when I discovered it also had 18 of their employees standing by for those seats.  Nope …. that wouldn’t work.

Mission Espada

I did have an option for Terry but he wasn’t interested.  I figured he could take the Wednesday overnight flight from Portland to Charlotte and then grab a morning flight back to Dallas and on to San Antonio.  My thought was that he could sleep on the plane so what difference did it make??  That’s what I would have done but he wasn’t interested.   Thus, he was stuck all day Thursday at the airport.  We figured Seattle would offer more options so this evening we bought a ticket to Seattle.  That was one of the few flights they would still sell a ticket or two on.  Hopefully, that flight won't be cancelled like a few others have been and we'll be able to start this all over again on Friday with a whole new set of flights to investigate. The flights aren't good in Seattle either but at least there are more of them.  Hopefully, he'll be back before our time is up here in San Antonio.

‘Tis life on the road.

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.