Trip Plans

Mission Tour is now in a combination of research and planning and tourist visits.

The Web site outline is complete and maps are present based on my trip research (these and the text posted with them may be modified once I actually get to the missions--but I believe they are basically correct as posted).

History is being added as research time allows. Throughout the process, corrections may be posted. Each page on the site has a "last modified" date on it so you can see when pages change.

I was able to do a short preview of the San Fernando mission on an unrelated trip to the Los Angeles area in March 2001. You can see the pictures on those pages.

And, 22 April 2001 was such a beautiful day that I just had to get out. So, I made an unexpected trip up to the San Miguel mission and toured that mission as a tourist. With lots of daylight left I also made it over to Mission San Antonio de Padua just to see where it actually was. Took a few photographs there just as setup shots. You can see the results of this trip on the respective mission pages.

July 4th brought a trip to Santa Barbara for fireworks. Staying overnight allowed a visit to Mission Santa Barbara the next day. A nice weekend on 8 July 2001 brought a short drive up to San Luis Obispo to see the mission there. Both tours are posted.

Saturday, 21 July 2001, La Purísima held a Mission Life Day with docents dressed in period costume and performing actions (e.g., spinning yarn, cooking, etc.) as they would have been performed during the mission period. Tour is posted.

Returning from a visit to relatives in the desert allowed a quick stop at the San Bernardino Asistencia just after Christmas 2001. Unfortunately, it was closed when it was supposed to be open but I managed to get some good pictures by holding the camera over the wall.

April 2002 found some archeology work being done at Mission Santa Ines. That was an excellent prod to get down there and visit.

July 2002 and a family reunion resulted in a trip to La Jolla. While there I managed to see the San Diego Mission and museum areas and the San Luis Rey Mission and asistencias. Also, saw some of the historic areas associated with the Spanish landing. These are being added to the site as time allows.

Extensive work on another Website that became very popular prevented much work on this one until late in 2003. A trip to San Rafael yielded the ability to get to see all of the missions North of San Francisco as well as the San Francisco Mission and the Mission at Soledad on the way back. Unfortunately, my GPS unit failed to work properly on this trip so there are unfortunately no GPS readings for those missions. I've tried to compensate by giving more detail in the instructions on getting to the missions.