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.