Missions

n.b. click images for full-size view

I found myself in need of a mental break last weekend, so I took Friday off and drove down to San Antonio. Just as everything in the Universe is apparently moving away from everything else, so too everything in Texas is five hours away from everything else. So, I woke up late and made a day of the drive.

I had hoped to see a different, more rural side to the state, and I was a bit disappointed in that. There were some rural areas that I liked, but it was mostly all the same. I found the Outlaw Country station on Sirius and just tucked in to the ride. 

About half way I decided to find some lunch and spotted a BBQ place off the highway that had a hand-painted sign that looked like it was there in the 1950's. It was a giant, dumb cowboy so I pulled right in.

The place had walls made out of pressboard and the food you ordered was measured on scales in front of you in the serving line. The girl gave me extra jalepenos and I was pleased.

I rolled into San Antonio early evening and checked into the Emily Morgan. This is a gothic, somewhat spendy hotel in the heart of downtown. I got it because it was right next door to the Alamo. That's the Alamo in the snap above. It's a pretty busy spot as you can see. I wandered around and took the lay of the land before going back to the hotel to clean up and eat.

My idea was this: the Alamo was going to be bongo all day long. If I wanted to get photos without people I would have to go at night. 

So I got up at 4am and walked over. I realized that I had forgotten to pack my bulb release, but the thing was blasted with lights, so 30 second exposures were fine. 

Great, so over I go and set for shooting. I get into it and lose track of time. I'm bracketing to see if HDR will help out the tough lighting, plus the shots take a half minute or so apiece, so an hour or so goes by quick. 

I hear a someone shifting position behind me and although I can't see, I recognize that it is a security guard who has been watching the whole time. I greet him and we shoot the breeze for a while. He's a cool guy and likes my idea to come when there are no people. He likes the peace of the night too and that's one reason he works the late shift. Yes yes. This guy's great. Cool old latin guy in a cowboy hat. Maybe I'll ask him to stand in for some shots. 

Well some point after that I hear him talking to someone else. Apparently it was the changing of shifts.

I found that out because I was setting up a shot right in front. During the course of doing that one leg of my tripod slipped slightly off the stone and onto the grass. Just barely touching part of it.

Immediately I hear "Hey!! gittertridangalangoffinthegrass!"It's a new voice and it's early in the morning and I just don't understand. What? Angrily now he screams "AH SED: GITTCHER TRIPOD LEG OFFIN THE GRASS!!!" I consider several options but reply "Ok!"

He doesn't say anything else but is clearly agitated and doesn't sit back down. My presence there is upsetting him. What if I tried to walk on the grass? Keep in mind he was a good 50 yards away in the dark and I was just barely on the grass.

I polish up my work and wave him a good night.

I go back to the hotel, sleep a couple hours and then start getting after the other missions. First up was Mission Concepcion. This place is well-preserved. I discovered that, like most of the others, this is an active chapel as well as a historic site. There was a small area of holy ground with a Virgin Mary shrine that had very recently been used. 

With most of these you get a couple empty rooms in the fort with some informative plaques and such.
In this one we learned that the Franciscans were all about being apart from the world; poverty and asceticism and such. It said they chose to have no influence in the world.
Then without a trace irony, in the next panel we see them supervising as the subjugated indians lined up bringing them food and doing all the labor.  The monks smiled at them beatifically.

Mission San Jose was more of the same. Sprawling compound- the kind of place that tour buses drop off dozens of septuagenarians while brides take photos in front of the doors. Here you learned that not all of the Indians went so quietly. For protection they built walls and made the acculturated indians live inside them.

Mission San Juan was being rebuilt and it was really nothing to see anyway.
But I went a little further and found Mission Espada down by the aqueduct.
This place was mostly just the remains of walls around an old chapel.
It was in a neighborhood and, like the others still in use. This one wasn't much of a tourist destination though, so the  draw was really the services. These areas had signs about being sure to lock your car and the church sat maybe 60 on hard benches.
But when I went in the church I saw a (white) Franciscan monk in his robe talking to a latino family after they had done a first communion. Kids running around in fancy dresses and such. They were clearly neighborhood people and he knew them. I think they were giving him money.

I liked that the link to the past was pretty much unbroken here. I didn't love the story the history told all the time, but it was interesting to see a scene playing out that could have happened a hundred years ago.   I hopped in the mustang and got on the road.