Mission Church - San Juan Bautista

Day 4 - September 4, 2011

It is Sunday.  For Mass, Sue decided we should check out the old Mission church at San Juan Bautista.  This cute little (and very Western looking) town is just a bit south of Prunedale on Route 101 South.  It took about 30 minutes to get to the town, and off the center of the town is the large compound of the old Mission church.

This church is an adobe church, built in 1797, with the help of the native Indians.  The floor tiles inside are clay tiles, and some of the tiles have hoof prints on them.  These are left by animals stepping on the tiles when they were drying in the sun.





There are three aisles inside.  The two outside aisles are empty. The main aisle has two columns of pews.  We sat pretty much up front on the left side

The three sisters.

This is the long corridor that leads from the street to the church.  You can see the clay bricks in the column in front.  Outside, it is lined with tall trees, and we can park our car just in front, under the shade of the big trees.

A front view of the corridor.

I have come to enjoy using geometric shapes to frame the pictures.  This is my first attempt to get the white building across the field.  I want to show the thickness of the wall, but was not able to center the white building without losing the full thickness of the wall.

This picture just shows the geometry of the corridor.  I like the simplicity of the image.

This is a building, next to the white building. It is a beautiful building.  We did not go inside.

The Plaza Hotel is just across the street.  The right most door says "Bar Room", and Louis and I were going to belly up to the bar and yell "Bar keep!".  I don't think the hotel is open anymore.  Along the front is a horse hitch, the long pole for cowboys to tie their horses while they go in for drinks.











On the side, there are individual posts with rings, also for hitching horses.

We had lunch at the Jardin xx xx in town. A nice Mexican restaurant.
We ordered a pitcher of Margarita, but they served the drinks in tiny wine glasses.  Sue was not pleased.

Paula having her 'birthday' chocolate ice cream.  The waitresses and hostess sang "Happy birthday" to Paula.