After church this morning we headed south. We hoped to leave behind the high heat of the central Sacramento Valley (it was suppose to be 113 this week) and bask in the cooler breezes of the Pacific Ocean. Well maybe not from the ocean but certainly from getting closer to it and away from the valley floor. And indeed, by the time we reached San Juan Bautista in the middle of the afternoon it was just 76 degrees with beautiful breezes. Now this is the perfect weather!!!
The drive down included a period of time on some very scenic road filled primarily with what Bette tells me the Californians call golden hills. I must say my midwest up bringing says they were filled with dead grass but they did have their own beauty.
But there were evidences of life - cattle grazing
And trees popped up on a few of the hills - all orderly planted
But mostly everything appeared dry for mile after mile till a huge reservoir appeared
The water level is obviously way down
Then once again we were back to those "golden hills" plus winding roads and lots of ups and downs
This shot shows the great contrast we would occasionally see of green and gold
Lots of our fruit and vegetables come from fields we could see along the way. In fact, we began to see stands with signs advertising black cherries, apricots, strawberries, avocados, garlic......
Once we had settled into our campground spaces we decided to go to San Juan Bautista Mission before it closed for the day. It is one of 21 "planted" in the 1700s and early 1800s all along the Pacific Ocean side of California though not necessarily right next to it. This one was built in 1797 by Father Fermin de Lasuen. It was one of four that he established.
The chapel is brightly painted and is quite wide with two side chapels
To the right was this side chapel
On the left was this
But we had little time for going through the museum section of the mission as it was near closing time. However I did stand in awe of these old books on display. A hymnal hand produced in the early 1800s
And this huge hymnal hand produced around the same time
Since we had to exit through the courtyard area and gardens, we had a little more time there to enjoy the beauty of it all
We then drove down into the little historic section of town and enjoyed a meal at this little restaurant in a very old building
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