Mission Statement

I went on a road trip with my daughter for a few days.  She just got a new teaching position about 21/2 hours from here in the city of Salinas.  This is near the Monterey coast, just a bit inland, and the home of author John Steinbeck.  I helped her set up her classroom, we went shopping and did a little sightseeing.  The cool ocean air was a relief,  since our Sacramento valley is a frying pan between now and the end of September.  Old town Salinas was full of great shops and places to eat.

Here is Steinbeck house, now a gift shop and museum.  Salinas has a great mixture of Victorian style houses as well as Mexican adobes with red tiled roofs.

A few miles from town was the San Juan Bautista Mission.  So much of California's history is tied to the Missions, and they are always fun to visit.  Each one is different, but they all share beautiful gardens, cool dark interiors decorated with statues and artwork of Saints, and colorful stencils on white plaster walls.

 Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Here is the front altar.

The Baptismal font.

The gardens were full of olive trees, palm trees, roses, butterfly bush, hollyhocks and crepe myrtle.  I wish my yard looked like this.

The San Andreas earthquake fault runs right along this area, and there was a sign on the Mission wall stating that the building was not retrofitted, so you are basically entering at your own risk.  I crossed my fingers and said a prayer before I went in.

Father Junipero Serra led the way for the missions to be built in California.  The path that links all the missions is called the El Camino Real,  
See that tree to the right of the statue.  That is a pepper tree.  They get full of pretty clusters of red berries that the birds love to eat.  Remind me to plant one in my yard. 

A view of the fertile Salinas Valley from on top of the hill where the Mission is located.

I came home and dug through my books looking for John Steinbeck novels.  I found The Red Pony and think I will start it this week.
 It was nice to get back to my sewing room and pick up my yarn, as I was starting to have withdrawals.  I added a few more squares to the sampler I am making for the wise craft crochet along.

Thank you to Missy at Edith Florence, for the wonderful blog award!  Go on over and say hi, she is quite the friendly sort, and has a lovely blog too! I'm going to be glued to the television this week, watching the Olympics, and catching up on my crochet.  Have a great week!