I recently finished reading a book called All the Gallant Men, a fascinating memoir by Donald Stratton, who was serving aboard the USS Arizona at the time of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He survived the ship’s sinking but suffered serious burns; and while he and his fellow survivors were initially treated in Hawaii, they were later transferred first […]
As I began watching this final episode of Huell’s California Mission series I expected something completely different. When I first saw the title “Art of the Missions,” I had imagined a tour of some surviving pieces of religious art — paintings of the Virgin, stained glass windows, tile mosaics. But even though I had it completely wrong, this turned out […]
My last group of slides exploring La Purísima Concepción, shot by my mom in the spring of 1982, focuses on the garden areas. After going through all these slides, I would definitely like to visit this beautiful state historic park near Lompoc, California. I’m sure there has been a lot of changes and improvements to the mission over the past […]
I can’t count the number of times over the years I passed through the city of Auburn on Interstate 80 and noticed the old courthouse and the statue of the miner. Each time I promised myself, “One of these days I’m going to stop and check this out.” Well, that day finally arrived — and even though I only paused […]
Some of the sights Huell finds as he explores the gardens of Mission La Purísima Concepción may seem a bit familiar if you’ve been following my recent Friday series, in which I’ve shared slides my mom shot there back in the early 1980s. And later this week my images will include some from the garden area. I’m really glad that […]
It’s been more than a decade since my last visit to the Empire Mine State Park in Grass Valley, so last Wednesday I returned to see how much exploring I could fit into roughly four hours. I was originally planning to stay only two hours, but the time flew by so quickly! Even though the interior of the buildings was […]
I’ve nearly come to the end of my mom’s slides showing Mission La Purísima Concepción in 1982, with only one more week to go. This week, along with some interior shots from the mission’s museum, there’s a 1979 image of the amazing Moreton Bay fig tree in Santa Barbara. Listed on the California Register of Big Trees, the Moreton Bay […]
The “forgotten” 22nd Mission, San Antonio de Pala, was built in 1816 and serves the people of the Pala Village. Huell learns quite a lot about the history of the mission and the reservation, including a visit to a portion of the mission that is home to the Vivian Banks Charter School; the school is unique in being a public […]
Today I have an image of each of the three missions featured in Wednesday’s post, San Francisco de Asis, San Rafael Arcangel, and San Francisco Solano. Although I’ve never visited them, these three missions have been more interesting to me, partly because they are all in Northern California. These three missions perfectly illustrate the widely varying fortunes of California’s historic […]