Tag Archives: CA

Village sanctuary

This is the eleventh installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

I’m not entirely certain why, but this place also makes the list of my favorite missions. Mission San Migue Arcángel doesn’t exactly have a lot of bells and whistles (well, it does have bells…), so it’s yet another mission that gets overlooked by the hordes of tourists. But I dunno—I just really, really liked it here.

Mission San Miguel sits on the edge of a tiny town of the same name (are you sensing a pattern here?)—from the grounds you can look out across the Salinas Valley to the San Andreas Fault. And you can hear the birds, and the breeze, and not a whole lot else. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.

It also helps that the place comes with a crazy tale of pirates and buried treasure (click the image above to embiggen and read the story). Forget Zorro—at San Miguel, the truth is stranger than fiction.

Perhaps best of all, I loved being able to make a return visit. I first came here almost precisely two years earlier, on the trip that first gave me the idea to visit all 21 missions. On both trips I had to visit multiple missions on the same day—which made it hard to sketch everything I’d have liked.

Coming back a second time gave me the chance to delve a little deeper, and discover details that had escaped my notice the first time.

Or to zoom in and redraw something from a different angle—

—or in a different format.

On both visits, I was awfully sad to have to pack up and hit the road again. But at least I have proof that I can and will return someday.

Jumbo java

Need a Scandinavian beverage to wash down all that krumkake and hvetebrod? A cuppa of Swedish coffee might do the job nicely.

The jewel of SLO

This is the tenth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

Unlike last week, where we were smack in the middle of the California countryside, this week’s mission is right in the center of it all.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the origin and focal point for the town that takes its name, is another of the painstakingly well-cared-for missions in the chain.

And that’s because like Santa Barbara, the town of San Luis Obispo is a tidy, picturesque, wealthy community. So while the mission itself might not be as exciting as La Purisima or San Juan Capistrano (though Mission San Luis Obispo was involved in a brief skirmish during the Mexican-American war, so there!) ,it’s so beautifully situated and restored that it just draws you in (no pun intended).

There’s not a whole lot here anymore that’s original—at least on the surface. But I think they did a great job of merging a period aesthetic with modern touches. I only managed this one sketch of the interior, but if you’re ever there, prepare to spend some time inside the church itself. They took such care with approximating the hand-painted decor that the finished result is breathtaking.

Actually, I’m glad the place isn’t quite as action-packed as La Purisima. Since I did the two on the same day, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the time I pulled into SLO. But as soon as I stepped foot inside the mission, the place did its job as a retreat and sanctuary. Suddenly it was easy to pull out the old sketchbook again, and start letting the images flow.

Rural retreat

This is the ninth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

Mission La Purisima Concepción was probably the one for which I did the least amount of research—the mission I knew the least about. I’m so glad I showed up there without doing my homework first, because it ended up being both a complete surprise and my very favorite mission.

La Purisima is unique in a couple of ways: in the first place, it’s one of only two in the chain that have been deconsecrated. Now that it’s no longer an active church, it’s now operated as a California state park.

The other unique thing is that La Purisima is the only mission in the chain to still include the entire mission complex. Most of the missions are down to just the church and gardens, but this one still encompasses the adjacent monastery, workshops, cemetery, and remnants of the mission village.

Much of what’s there today was reconstructed by the CCC in the 1930s (like most of the missions, it was badly damaged in a long-ago earthquake), and currently maintained by the state park system.

I think I arrived not long after a recent restoration, because the place was in fine fettle.

Best of all, I had almost the whole place to myself—which, combined with its remote location, made it feel like I’d stumbled upon a bit of hidden treasure.

I could have stayed there all day, basking in sunshine, birdsong and the sweet spring breeze.

But what really bowled me over was that gorgeous pink stucco.

Instead of a historic shell, inhabited only by ghosts, that pink made the place feel very much alive.

Soup’s on

Now this is more like it. Solvang might have seemed a little too much like a polished Disneyland for my taste, but in the next town over was something much more my speed.

Though its name has changed slightly over the years, Pea Soup Andersen’s has been a Santa Ynez Valley institution for over 90 years. And while I’m not sure their famous split-pea soup is quite as home-cooked as it may have been in 1924 (it tastes fairly processed, I’m sad to say), there’s something comforting and homey about sitting down to hot soup after a long day of travel.

And the decor! This is the kind of low-brow charm I was hoping for in Solvang. Every inch of the place is Danish-ized to the hilt (but in a far less polished way than in Solvang), and there’s a heckuva gift shop that’s worthy of the best roadside attractions.

And there’s one other thing Andersen’s has that Solvang doesn’t: killer neon.

(They had me at the neon.)

Cheese Danish

I think you know by now that I’m a fan of roadside attractions—anything cheesy, hokey, corny and kitschy has a special place in my heart. But I need to clarify something: I’m pretty snobbish about my kitsch. It’s got to be either bizarre but well-executed, or so bad it’s good, or of epic scale—or else just so wonderfully earnest that no matter how lame it is, it melts my heart.

Solvang, California is none of the above, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Despite having a Spanish mission on site for a hundred years already, the hamlet of Solvang was founded and settled in 1911 by Danish immigrants coming from the American Midwest. Its famous half-timbered mock-Danish architecture, however, didn’t start appearing until after World War II. Some of the buildings—like the 1991 scale replica of Copenhagen’s Rundetårn, of which you can just see a snippet at the top of the above sketch—are very recent additions.

But the thing about Solvang is that all that ersatz European architecture is pretty darn well done: the craftsmanship is all reasonably solid and the theme is consistent throughout town. And that kind of irritates me!

There’s something else, too: Wall Drug, and the Corn Palace, and Lucy the Elephant, and all the other roadside greats might be oddball anomalies and hokey destinations—but weird as they are, each is the genuine article. Solvang is a replica—worse, an approximation—of something that already exists. If I had the choice, I’d rather just buy a ticket to Denmark, and sketch the real thing.

And here’s the hardest part for me to swallow: Solvang is fake, sure, but it’s professional fakery—the kind you find at a theme park (incidentally, I loathe theme parks). The faux-Danish veneer is carefully considered and well-crafted enough to be attractive. I mean, I liked it well enough to take the time to sketch it, right? Yet the town doesn’t quite have the endearing charm of a place like Wall Drug: the overwhelming effect of an amateur with perhaps more skill than taste, more business savvy than artistry. It’s no Disneyland, thankfully (though the town’s copy of the Little Mermaid sculpture comes close), but it’ll never make my list of favorites.

I know, I know. What kind of nut case writes critical essays on the relative artistic merits of ersatz period architecture and oversized folk art? Well, my kind of nut case, apparently. I guess this is what happens when you send a chronic road-tripper to art school. Sigh.

So okay: Solvang gets a pass for being pretty—and for giving me access to fresh-baked æbleskivers. But I’d really like it if it also had a few lumpy concrete sculptures and clumsy ho-made signs to its name.

Mixed-metaphor mission

This is the eighth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

For most of the missions along El Camino Real, the mission itself is the main feature (and tourist draw) for each mission town along the way. That’s especially true for places like San Juan Capistrano, where the mission provided not only the origin of the town, but also the model for all architecture and tourist themes to follow.

That may once have been the case for Mission Santa Inés as well, but you’d never know it these days. That’s because the mission is located in the town of Solvang—a tourist draw all by itself, and a town inspired by a completely different aesthetic than that of the Spanish mission (as you’ll see in the next post—I don’t want any spoilers to detract from the, er, mission of this one).

Still, if you knew nothing of Solvang itself—or if you happened to approach the mission from the east, and hadn’t yet seen any sign of the town’s dominant architecture—you’d think Santa Inés were the best and only reason to visit. It certainly makes for an incredibly picturesque vista, perched above its namesake valley as it is.

Solvang is famous in its own right, however, so it’s more likely you’d be there to see the town itself—and then you’d be surprised to discover there’s also a Spanish mission there.

Still, while the mission feels a little out of place in Solvang, the whole area is a bit of a mish-mash of cultural influences. Even the mission itself was founded by Spanish colonists, named for an Italian saint represented by a Latin pun, established to convert local Indian tribes, adorned with a garden laid out in a Celtic cross pattern, and today an active center for the local Mexican-American community. It’s all just one big mixed metaphor now… and all the more endearing for it.

Pastel parish

This is the seventh installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

Now, here’s a lovely thing. Mission Santa Barbara is one of the most well-known and beloved in the chain, and it shows. And it almost seems to be the companion piece to San Luis Rey de Francia: for one thing, while San Luis Rey is often called the “King of the Missions,” Santa Barbara’s been crowned the Queen by her fans. For another, both have beautiful pastel accents—Santa Barbara in feminine pink, San Luis Rey in baby blue.

Even the cemetery of Santa Barbara matches that of San Luis Rey, with its trio of skull-and-crossbones (though unlike San Luis Rey’s Hollywood touches, Santa Barbara’s are original).

Santa Barbara also stands out because it is so lovingly cared for. Located in the affluent town that owes it name to the mission, Santa Barbara has been painstakingly restored and maintained–unlike her somewhat more inner-city brother San Gabriel.

At first I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of the place, and worried I’d never be able to pick a vantage point for my sketchbook.

But in the end, it was the details that really had me smitten. Between the pink accents (I’m a sucker for pink), the careful stonework and the magic-hour light, the compositions really chose themselves.

Reconnaissance mission

This is the sixth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

Well, I don’t have much to report this week—because this was pretty much all I was able to see of Mission Buenaventura.

By the time I got there (fighting fierce L.A. traffic and a mass exodus to the beach all the way), the place was already closed for the day.

So what little I was able to see of this place was what I managed to glimpse through the fence, craning my neck to make out the details of the beautiful Mexican tilework on the fountain (that tilework is also placed around downtown Ventura, so at least I got a good eyefull of it there!).

But hey—all the more reason to return, yes? And thanks to what I like to think of as a first “reconaissance mission” to Ventura, I’ll know exactly where to pick up where I left off.

Splendor and sequins

This is the fifth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post.

Last week we visited one of the more unassuming missions in the chain. Just over in the next valley is another complex seemingly forgotten by your average mission tourist: Mission San Fernando Rey de España.

Mission San Fernando is also part of the greater Los Angeles area, tucked away in a residential neighborhood in the northern end of the San Fernando Valely. Compared with its brother on the other side of the city, Mission San Fernando is a little better looked after, with tidier grounds and neatly restored buildings. Most of San Gabriel’s architecture is original—crumbling, but authentic. San Fernando’s is pristine, but largely modern (at least on the surface). The restoration seems to have made it lose something: that feel of great age, of venerable history.

Still, the property is gorgeous. And when I saw what was going on inside the grounds, I couldn’t help but smile. I was there on a busy Saturday, which I only remembered was Valentine’s Day when I arrived and saw teenage girls everywhere in frilly dresses, waiting for their quinceañeras to start. There were a bunch of brides milling around as well, but next to the teens in their bright pink confections they were positively drab. Some of the quinceañera gowns reminded me of puffed-up peacock feathers…

…until I rounded a corner and came upon an actual peacock.

I guess this is the perfect illustration of why I went on this trek to visit all 21 missions. I came to see the architecture, but what really charmed me were the slices of real life going on within the walls. And actually taking the time to explore each mission showed me that even the most unassuming of them had plenty of surprises in store for me.