We woke to rain and wind. Yesterday's high was 83 degrees. Today's high was 47 degrees. That seems like a drastic change in weather. The cold didn't make us feel like going anywhere but we finally braved the cold to go to Box St. All Day for brunch. It was a good choice.
After breakfast we came back to the rental. Gayle wanted to do her laundry and rest. Her back has been hurting since the Cathedral of Junk. She spent quite a bit of time in that amazing place standing and verticality is what causes her trouble.
I took her car and headed for the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas. It encompasses five missions in San Antonio that stretch along the San Antonio River and illustrate the Spanish Crown's efforts to colonize, evangelize and defend the northern frontier of New Spain. I decided to go to Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo. I chose it because it is referred to as the Queen of the Missions because of how well preserved it is. The National Park Service maintains and operates this UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I stopped in the Visitor Center for a map. The ranger told me that the only brochures they had left were in Spanish. I said, "Well then it is a good thing that I am learning Spanish on Duolingo." I turned on the audio tour on my phone and headed past the walls of the mission.
It was impressively large inside the walls.
The homes of the Natives were built into the wall.
The church is still an active parish that holds a mariachi mass once a week.
They had an ofrenda set up in the vestibule.
This is a Franciscan mission and they had a replica of St. Francis' corpse in a glass casket. They had cut away the robe to show his stigmata, which they said he hid from the world to keep him from being tempted by pride.
Since I still had some time to kill I decided to take the Mission Road to see what the other missions looked like. Everywhere I went along the river there were signs warning of potential flooding, and it was really raining by this time. I crossed one bridge that seemed close to flooding.
I hurried across and stopped at Mission Espada. There were no intact structures left. It was windy and raining and one of the visitors before me had left their broken umbrella in the trash can. Needless to say, I didn't stay long!
As I continued on the journey of missions I passed a cemetery. My grandfather, a sociologist, liked to say if you really want to understand a culture you need to visit their cemeteries. My mother often had us stop at cemeteries on our travels. So I pulled in. It was clear that people had come to decorate the tombstones of their loved ones, and perhaps have a picnic in honor of Dia de los Muertos.
I drove on to the Mission Concepcion. I was running later than I had planned so I didn't explore it as much as the others.
The Alamo is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Gayle and I remember being there as young children on a family vacation. We didn't feel like we needed to go to the Alamo this trip. Gayle believes she remembers everything she heard on the tour from childhood. But now I am interested in at least driving by. I knew it as the fortress where Davy Crockett lost his life. I didn't realize that it had begun as a Catholic Mission to convert the people native of this land. It was abandoned in 1793 and later became a fortress housing a military unit. Maybe we can swing by on our way out of town tomorrow.
Gayle and I decided that today would be our day to go to a movie. I came back to our rental and we headed out to see Killers of the Flower Moon. It is a 3 hour, 37 minute movie and worth every minute. It tells the story from the 1920s of the Osage people. After they were moved off their land to an area of Oklahoma deemed worthless it turned out to be oil rich. Subsequently, the Osage became the wealthiest people, per capita, on the planet. There were many, many murders and unexplained deaths of the Osage people during that time in what became known as the Reign of Terror. This movie tells the sad tale and int arrival of the FBI. I think it is Martin Scorsese's finest. If you have four hours to kill, I would recommend you see this movie.
We were pretty hungry by the time we got to our car. We found food and headed home. Tomorrow we leave for Corpus Christi and a chance to see our Uncle Stanley.
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