Tag Archives: Salinas Valley

Lonely outpost

This is the thirteenth 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.

The “Soledad” in Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad means “solitude.” And boy howdy, is that ever accurate.

The third of three missions located in the Salinas Valley, La Soledad is also the most remote. It’s not as far off of modern Highway 101 as Mission San Antonio, but it’s the farthest from civilization.

In fact, even though there’s almost nothing left of the original complex (thanks to the caprice of the Salinas River)…

…you really get a sense for how self-sufficient the missions had to be when they were founded.

That’s because the mission is located smack in the middle of a bunch of vegetable fields. Quite literally. There’s no fanfare about the place—there’s barely even any waymarking to find it. It’s a bit of a shock, actually, after seeing mission after mission in town centers or near tourist traps.

But that’s the best part of the place: being able to stand in the shade and look out at a landscape right out of a Steinbeck novel.

Mountain mission

This is the twelfth 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.

Note: At the time of my visit, the façade of the building was ensconced in scaffolding. I was so sad at the idea of including it in my sketches that I just…didn’t. I drew around it, and sketched as if it weren’t there. So know that if you go, you might not find it looking like this. I’m not sure how long the current restoration project will go on.

Today we’ll visit a mission that stands out among its brothers and sisters. While some details might bring to mind places like La Purisima or San Juan Capistrano, there’s simply nowhere quite like Mission San Antonio de Padua.

As you head north out of San Luis Obispo along the Salinas Valley, you’ll pass three missions before you reach Monterey Bay. Each one is more remote than the one before, so make sure you have food, water and plenty of petrol if you decide to make the trek.

San Antonio, the second of the Salinas Valley three, is one of the oldest missions in the entire chain. And it has all kinds of features and details that you won’t find at any of the others—like the subtly contrasting archways. Or the campanile situated in front of the main entrance, instead of off to the side or around the corner.

The interior of the church is also really unusual, with its squared-off arches and wooden planking.

The overall look of the place is different, too—like this might be a Texas or New Mexico mission instead (or perhaps Italy, like San Antonio himself).

It’s certainly located in the most mountainous stretch of the Royal Road—and since you actually have to enter and cross a military installation (which buffers the place even further from modern civilization) to get here, the trip really feels like an old-fashioned expedition.

Maybe that’s what I liked best of all: this feeling of stepping back in time and seeing the one mission that is perhaps the closest to how it has always been.

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.