On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
First up, pictures from valued commenter BroD (note from Alain: should’ve run Monday!).
I tend to hunker down at home on holidays so here’s a few from the dead oak out back.
Taken on 2017-08-28
Baltimore
If this doesn’t make you imagine captions, you’re a robot.
These flying dinosaurs, in their varied carriages, are just…so…damned….cool! Thank you so much for this.
Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.
The Spanish established a chain of 21 missions in California in the late 18th and early 19th century, stretching from San Diego to Sonoma. The mission properties were rather wealthy and included industrial operations, by some accounts owning 1/6 of Alta California. They were secularized after Mexican independence and fell into various states of disrepair. Many have been restored to their original(but smaller) state. They are now owned by the Catholic Church and are both museums and active churches.
Mission San Juan Capistrano
I visited Mission San Juan Capistrano in the late 60’s as a child and wanted to revisit it; being that I didn’t want to fight traffic driving down to southern Orange County, I took AmTrak from Union Station to San Juan Capistrano. Mission San Juan Capistrano was the 7th mission established in 1776. It contains “Serra Chapel”, the only know building still standing that
FatherSt. Junipero Serra celebrated mass and is the oldest building in the State of California. The mission also contains the ruins of “The Great Stone Church” that was built in the early 1800’s and was promptly destroyed in the 1812 7.5 magnitude San Juan Capistrano earthquake during morning mass with a loss of 42 lives. A basilica that was based upon the design of “The Great Stone Church” was built next to the mission in the 1980’s.Fountain with “The Great Stone Church” in the background.
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
This is right at the entrance to the mission after you pass though the gift shop and they take your cash. Anyway, it’s a nice looking fountain.
Ruins of “The Great Stone Church”
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
The characteristic that separates “The Great Stone Church” from other mission buildings(both at Mission San Juan Capistrano and all the other missions) is in it’s name. It was built using stone as opposed to adobe bricks. This is the view from what would have been the church doors with the bell tower to the right
“The Great Stone Church” and the four-bell campanario in infrared.
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
At the right of the picture is the ruins of “The Great Stone Church” with the 4 bell campanario that was constructed after the stone church’s demise. On the left is the back of “Serra’s Chapel”. Behind the capanario is the sacred garden.
Serra’s Chapel(with fisheye!)
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
As noted in the general description, this is the oldest structure in California and the only place still standing that Saint Serra celebrated mass.
Mission Courtyard(in fisheye!)
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
This is the main mission courtyard with Serra’s chapel at the right of the picture.
Mission Courtyard(in infrared)
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
This is the same as the view as above, but a narrower field of view and in infrared.
The Mission Basilica(with fisheye!)
Taken on 2016-12-02
San Juan Capistrano, CA
This is the interior of the basilica that was built in 1980’s. Comparing this to the pictures of “The Great Stone Church”, you can see the resemblance.
Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
?BillinGlendaleCA
It was appropriate that the Mission San Gabriel set that ran on Monday, since it was September 4th. On September 4, 1781 a band of 44 settlers left Mission San Gabriel for the Tongva village of Yangna and founded the City of Los Angeles.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: so you’re a night owl?
Mary G
This is my stomping grounds and Saint Serra isn’t so universally beloved by all. He was exceptionally cruel to his forceably-converted native parishioners and there was quite a bit of criticism of the spendiness of the multi-decade building project when there were and are quite a few extremely poor local parishioners and people passing through on their way to pick crops that could have used ministering to in other ways. Also, too the church built a swanky private high school north of the mission whose football field was allegedly put in over a sacred native burial ground that predated the Spaniards, over many protests. That said, the old part of the mission is stunning in its survival in the face of all the developers who wanted to tear it down over the years.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: (who, who).
raven
Capistrano 1959.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G:
I’ve heard the same criticism from Catholics in the past 20 years, ever visit the “Rog* Mahal”(The Cathedral of Our Lady of The Angels) in downtown LA?
*Rog refers to the former archbishop of the Los Angeles archdioceses, Roger Mahoney.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: That’s the same fountain as in the first pic.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep, and I don’t think those are swallows!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Actually reading up on the mission as I was writing the text; the swallows have pretty much abandoned the mission. The area has become too developed.
JPL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks for the pictures. Night!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Thanks, and I believe it’s night here, it’s rather dark outside. //
debbie
I miss having a camera with a polarizing filter. Those blues!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: I don’t think I was using a polarizing filter.
ETA: When I get the pictures home, the first thing I generally do is reduce the highlights which makes for a darker sky and enhances clouds.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I shoot RAW and the visual light pics just get processed in Lightroom, the IR shots have a color swap(red/blue) that’s done in Photoshop.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The smoke in the sky must look pretty scary. I hope the forest fires are not coming your way.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The fires are out here and the smoke is clearing out. The kid is vacationing in Seattle and put up a pic on Facebook from the Space Needle and it looks dreadful up there.
Mary G
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Never been inside, but drove by the Roj Mahal under construction millions of times while I was working and living up there and picking up my mom at Union Station when she took the Amtrak up to visit. She never failed to shake a fist at it, convinced that he built it at least partly with money obtained by hushing up child molestation.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G:
She was probably right. I’d not been inside either until late last year, it doesn’t have much charm and it kind of has a cold feel to it.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, the picture of me and my sis is 60 years old.
MomSense
The photo of the birds on the dead oak tree looks like it could be a back of the album photo.
I’m loving these mission photos, Bill.
Another Scott
That woodpecker is right to be worried. Mockingbirds don’t like to have their high-points challenged.
Great shots.
Have a good day, everyone. Keep an eye on Irma. :-( And fight for DACA!
Cheers,
Scott.
bystander
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
So, fewer run-ins with the police if you shoot at night?
Nice pics, and I’ll bet those cold tile floors feel good on your bare feet, BiG.
meander
I started a comment about how this mission was used in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” but then realized that I had confused San Juan Capistrano with San Juan Batista. In the interest of keeping with the recent California Mission theme, here it is:
The Mission at San Juan Batista (San Benito County, 30 miles south of San Jose) is a key location in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo.” The story needed a tall tower, but there is no tower at the mission, so Hitchcock’s team used matte photography to add the tower to the mission for some location shots (the CGI of the time) and built a set on a sound stage for the tower interiors. The stables across of the lawn from the chapel are also critical to the story, and I’m sure that most of the stable interiors were shot on a sound stage. The interior of the chapel gets a few seconds of screen time.
San Juan Batista is a nice stop on a drive if you are traveling on Highway 101 south of San Jose. It’s a few miles off of the highway and is a quiet place to look at a slice of California history.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
A bit of sad history that I learned at the Autry: while the missions were pretty destructive to the California Native Americans’ culture and spread some nasty diseases, they mostly survived. The event that decimated and nearly wiped them out was the California Gold Rush, which brought waves of miners who started a genocide. So in some ways, the missions get a deliberately bad rap from people trying to claim it was the nasty Spaniards who killed off California’s Native Americans when it was actually American settlers who were primarily responsible.
Major Major Major Major
The Mission Dolores in San Francisco is really interesting too.
No One You Know
Heartsick today, and in tears. Starting to feel like we are all at the mercy of the stupidest people among us. My Columbia Gorge photo trip, delayed because of the heat, is off totally because a fucking teenaged boy decided it would be funny to throw firecrackers. Eagle Creek is destroyed.
Malheur trip was cancelled due to fucking grown men who decided it was important to pretend to cosplay as revolutionaries. And they get away with it.
The air here feels bad and tastes bad. But the moon was peach-colored and the sunsets are as fabulous as they are poisonous.
#MAGA
rikyrah
I respect those that can get good animal pictures.
Bill,
As always, great group of pictures.
WaterGirl
Heartsick and in tears, that was me yesterday, thinking about the Dreamers. It’s hard to watch. In the meantime, I find that the photos here – and in Betty’s and TaMara’s posts – help keep me from plummeting into the depths. We need beauty and joy to keep us going so we can fight them at every step.
J R in WV
Raven,
I’m so jealous of your ability to pluck a family photo from your vast archives that’s totally appropriate for anything that come up.
We had stacks of photos, but can only ID a handful of the people or places. o well.
opiejeanne
@J R in WV: I sat with my mother for half an hour at a time identifying people in her family photos, when she had that much clarity. She had Alzheimers so it was a slow process.
I was also a member of a family forum in the late 90s to 2009 that shared photos and was lucky enough to have several very old people who were still very sharp. They told me stories about their grandparents during and after the civil war. One told me about my 13 yo great grandmother walking from North Carolina to Missouri with her family and that his grandfather had walked with her after the Civil War. Her mother “divorced” their father, hitched up a wagon and followed her parents to their farm in the Ozarks. They identified a lot of the people in a couple of group photos taken in Montana about 1927.
Party in Montana
?BillinGlendaleCA
@No One You Know:
The kid’s up in Seattle for her vacation and was planning a day trip to see the Columbia Gorge, it’s off for her as well. She put up a pic from the Space Needle, yuck.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah:
@MomSense: Thanks, that’s probably the last of the mission pics until I can get to Ventura and Santa Barbara.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@bystander:
Heh. RAW, not in the raw.
Thanks.