Mission Santa Barbara

This mission was the busiest of all of the missions so it wasn't as fun to tour it. The museum had a lot of nice artifacts but after going to La Purisima and seeing the rooms as they were back in the mission days, it wasn't as interesting to see the displays in the case. 

One interesting thing about this mission is that the girl that the book Island of the Blue Dolphins is about is buried at the mission. After the tour was over, the guide brought me and my sisters and mom and dad over to where she's buried in the cemetery. They didn't know her real name, so they called her Juana Maria. Incase you haven't read the story, she was brought to one of the islands near Santa Barbara with her tribe from San Francisco & they were left on the island.  A few years later, the Spanish decided to go get the Indians off the Island. Juana Maria was going to get on the boat but ran off the get someone. The boat couldn't stay and wait because a bad storm came. The captain was going to go back to get her but he got orders to go to San Francisco and his ship sank. Nobody bothered to go get her for another 18 years. When they did go, they brought her to Mission Santa Barbara. She was very healthy when they found her, but she died about 6 weeks later because she was used to eating acorns and they gave her food that her body wasn't used to. 

My favorite part of the tour was that the bells went off when we were sitting in the church because it was 12:00 and it was very loud and beautiful. There are a lot of bells in the towers above the church. 

The bottom part of this is actual stone, but from where the bell towers start is concrete because of California's earthquake building codes. The towers are painted to look like stone. Also they made the front of this mission have parts of lots of different cultures. The columns are Greek and the pyramid is Egyptian. They were proud of all different people. We were right inside the doors when the bells rang at 12:00. They sound like they ring 24 times at 12 because each ring the inside of the bell hits both sides. 

This mission was different from the rest because you weren't very welcome to walk around wherever you wanted. The garden wasn't very pretty either. 

This was neat. The rafters of the roof are original. The area didn't have big trees, so they made them float in the ocean from up by San Francisco! They're made of Sequoia. 

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These ditches go all around the property so rain doesn't cause flooding or water to  ruin the building. The Indians at this mission are recognized for their smart irrigation and water use. 

This fig tree was planted in 1890!

This is where Juana Maria is buried. She's in the ground, not the wall. 

The Indians had crops growing all the way from the mission to the ocean a couple miles away. They came up with the idea to build a trench by the ocean to keep the water in, and trenches in rows down to the ocean. Any water that the mission didn't use went to watering the crops. 

Some original artifacts in a case. 

A statue of Junipero Sera and behind him is the mission landmark bell. All of the missions are along El Camino Real and these bells are all along the route between the missions. 

We didn't have time to go to Mission SanBuenaventura  because we stayed at this mission too long so we will go on our trip to see the missions by Los Angeles and San Diego. 

Mission La Purisima Concepcion

I learned a lot at this mission. It is owned by the State of California & a docent named MR. Cook gave us a 2 hour tour. The most interesting thing that I learned is that after forth grade, girls had to go live in a different part of the mission, away from everybody else. All these girls would live together until they got married (when they were around 13). Mr. Cook said they got married young because their lives were shorter. They slept, ate, and made things like candles and pottery in one room. They also had an outside space where there was a picnic table, an horno (outdoor oven), and a toilet. There were gates around the outside area to keep the girls separated from the other population. The toilet was over a ditch of running water from the stream, which would carry everything down stream and would keep the area from smelling. 

I also learnred that the Indian population had their own village on the grounds of the mission and they lived in tule huts, not in the mission buildings like I imagined. Those buildings are only for the workers, the Padres, and the guests that visit the mission. The mission is right on El Canino Real so it was kind of like a hotel. 

This mission was originally built in another spot but two weeks after being founded in 1812, a huge earthquake destroyed it. The mission was right on top of a major fault line. The padre decided to move the mission to where it is now. It's also on the same side of the El Camino Real road so flooding didn't prevent visitors from getting there. 

This mission is the only one that's in a straight line. It's like that because the local Indians were friendly and weren't a threat to the mission. There were only 5 soldiers that lived at the mission at a time.  They were separated from the Indians because they didn't like the Indians. 

School room

The canopy kept bugs from falling on the guests when they slept. 

Tule hut. 

The Indians enjoyed bathing. They took baths and washed their clothes in here. The Europeans did not take baths often. 

This is the room where the girls lived after they finished 4th grade until they got married. 

This is the infirmary. They kept the sick people away from the rest. The Indians often died from diseases that visitors brought.