Southern California Photos 6

I believe I was here when we took a family vacation out here in 1978. I know I drove by on my way down to Mexico in 2002. This is the Mission San Juan Capistrano.
The mission was founded in 1776 by Father Junipero Serra and was the seventh of the twenty-one that dot the California coast from San Diego to Sonoma. This is just inside the entry where there is a kind of garden filled with flowers.
There is a hut set up as an example of what the natives lived in at the time of the mission.
Inside the soldier's barracks. There wouldn't have been a lot of soldiers in a mission, but I imagine there would have to be enough to keep pissed-off natives away.
Father Junipero Serra's quarters.
The padre's dining area.
The west wing once held a dormitory, classrooms, and industrial operations. Now there are museum rooms.
Flags hung from the ceiling from nations that once had a presence in the state of California.
Silver stuff.
Baby grapes hanging in the mission industrial center.
We used to have lizards at our house in Plantation. They have the same problem in the mission.
Lizard on a brick.
This wing is the original location of the “Bodega,” or warehouse in which tallow, grains, woolens and hides were stored. Yeah, I took that from the guide.
Little bird nest things. When the swallows return to Capistrano, they have to have a place to live.
The east wing is where...
...the Serra Chapel is. It is the only original California Mission church still standing. There is gold stuff at the alter, but they seemed to have been doing some work on it so there is scaffolding in front of part of it.
One of the swallows. At least I think it was. Okay, I admit I don't know what the San Juan Capistrano swallows look like, but it's a small bird anyway. The swallows migrate annually between Argentina and this mission. The stay in California from mid-March to late October.
A couple of graves in the cemetery.
I could make several jokes about Catholic priests hugging naked boys, but I'll let you do that yourselves.
The mission bells.
This is the great stone church. It was completed and dedicated in 1806. Six years later there was a big earthquake on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1812 and the church fell apart. As you can see it was not rebuilt.
Just across the street is Pedro's Tacos. Do you think Father Serra used to go here for lunch?
On the first morning out there I hurt my back. I don't know how, maybe a pinched nerve or slipped disc. Anyway, after lying down on a flat bench earlier in the day I discovered that it helped with the pain. So I lied down on a bench inside an old jail cell that was on display in town. While I was there, I decided to take a photo straight up.