Day 7: Here, There, and Everywhere

Mom

After a leisurely morning of packing up and breakfast, we made the short trek to Mission San Juan Capistrano. They don't call this the Crown Jewel of Missions for nothing! What a beautiful site!!! The mission has an audio tour that explains all of the different areas within the walls and it was worth the price of admission.

Upon entering, visitors are greeted by vast gardens of brilliant color and variety. The mission buildings are all well-maintained and easily accessed. The first stop is a gorgeous fountain, followed by the soldiers barracks. The audio tour includes a cool story about the one time the mission was attacked...by pirates! The soldiers accomodations did not look very comfortable at all with beds that were little more than leather straps woven across a wooden frame. And, of course, like barracks everywhere, there were a lot of men crammed into one room.

The mission has extensive ruins and restored areas of the industry section with the tallow works, wine crushing room, kitchen, and adobe brick making kiln all available to see. The chapel is an absolute vision with a beautiful sanctuary and lovely paintings throughout. The altar itself has an amazing with 52 angels (one for every Sunday of the year) decorating it. As we were walking around, Milo told me that he really liked La Purisima, but San Juan Capistrano was his new favorite mission.

I bought a "replacement" ring so I didn't feel completely naked at a shop outside of the mission. Milo bought another book about mission history. Go figure.

The group loaded up around 1:00 and headed on to our next stop of the day: San Luis Rey de Francia which is known as the Father of the Missions. I had to sweet talk the lady in the gift shop to get enough saints/missions medals for our group because she only had 12 left and I wanted to buy half of her stock. My charm prevailed (the small donation to the church didn't hurt, either!).

The facade of the mission is pure white and can be scene from rather far away. It's beautiful inside with a small museum filled with artifacts, a sacred garden, and the church sanctuary. The altar itself is highly decorated with statuary and frescoes. There is one statue that is a bit creepy- it is of Christ on the Cross with all of the weeping wounds. That's normal for Catholic churches, of course. The truly strange part of this statue is the fact that Christ has actual hair. It was just weird.

Just off of the sanctuary is a room filled with devotional candles. Lisa and I bought a candle and lit it at the request of our friend Helen (Have fun in Hawaii, Love). We finished with a trip to the local sushi joint for lunch and then got into our cars once again to check into our hotel in San Diego.

After check in, we went to the pool which lasted about 10 minutes because the water was "too cold." So with six children filled with a little too much energy in tow, we walked to the Gas Lamp Quarter for pizza at Sammy's Woodfired Pizza Place. Delicious! We walked back to our hotel and all the children promptly passed out.

As I was washing my face, I looked down and found...my wedding ring! Hooray! I should have known that I would find it since I purchased a replacement (it was only $30, thank goodness). Tomorrow, we visit our last mission of this trip: San Diego de Alcala and Coronado Island. Then we hit a few amusement parks before going home to face a mountain of laundry (unless you are Lisa who is doing laundry right now)!

Milo

I woke up at 7 and 8:30 and we had breakfast at 10.  Then, we went to San Juan Capistrano, which was the best mission of the trip; it was the only one with an audio tour.  At one point, I ditched the group and found the ‘rubbing room’, where I made crayon rubbings of all 21 mission cattle brands.  We then went to San Luis Rey de Francia and then went to San Diego and our hotel.  We went on a walk to Sammy’s Pizza and then we came back to the hotel.