San Antonio Mission Trail

Yesterday afternoon, Dale, Patti, Dean and I visited the San Antonio Mission Trail, minus the Alamo. The picture above was the first mission we visited named Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion or Concepcion for short. This was one of the largest that we visited as far as the church portion is concerned. The other buildings built with a mission were not evident here. This building is still used every week for Mass. The acoustics in this church are equated with the Morman Tabernacle.

Here we are, the three women at the well at Mission Concepcion - right to left - Patti, Dale and yours truly.

Above is San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo or San Jose. These missions were all constructed in the 1700's. Mass was in progress when we visited San Jose so we were unable to go inside the church building. The picture below shows some of the bastion or walls of the mission. It was where the Indians were housed and the stone object you see is a oven. There appeared to be one oven for every 5/6 "houses". This mission was more complete in that the whole wall is intack. This mission is nicknamed the "Queen of the Missions."

The next mission is San Juan Capistrano or San Juan. This one did not have a lot of the original building left, but did have most of the wall. A interesting fact about the missions is that they all owned ranches which would include up to 3,500 head of sheep and nearly as many cattle. The ranches were close by the missions. All the missions were build by Spain in an attempt to stop French encroachments from Louisiana.

The above picture is inside Mission San Juan. Notice the purple cloth spilling out of the urn - it's Lent.

Lastly is San Francisco de la Espada or Espada. This mission is the southernmost of the San Antonio Chain of missions. Again, this is still an active church and there is a small convent attached to the church which was part of the original mission but, of course, has been remodeled with modern conveniences.

One last picture taken inside Espada. Each window had a clear glass urn with dust in it and the message for all of us to remember...

I would encourage you to do a internet search on San Antonio Missions to find out more information about the missions and their way of life.