The Mission Trails

Wednesday - This morning, Mel and Nette from the MelNetteLivingFreeZipCodeless YouTube channel, picked us up to explore the Mission Trails south of San Antonio. We started at the southern end and worked our way north visiting four of the five missions. The fifth mission is the Alamo in downtown San Antonio and which we visited on an earlier trip.

The first stop was Mission Espada at the bottom of the map.

This one had one of the most intact grounds and building foundations. There was a funeral going on in the church building so no pictures. This tree was kind of interesting though I'm not sure what kind of tree it was.

This is right near the entrance looking down through the Indian quarters which were built along the walls of the mission. 

The next one north was Mission San Juan. This one looked a lot more finished with the white finish over the rock walls. The rocks used on this building were a lot larger. I didn't look at the dates for original construction and rebuilding. All of these were operated by the National Park Service so I did pick up stamps for each location.

The next one was Mission San Jose. The church doors were open. They had several museum displays showing what life was like in the 18th century. I particularly liked the wooden downspouts attached to the flat roofed buildings to direct water away from the walls. 

The inside of the Mission San Jose church. This location also had an open visitor center and had National Park Passport stamps for the four locations we visited today.

This is the granary which, I assume was for storing grain. It was an impressively large space with an intact roof. 

The last one we visited was Mission Concepción. The visitor center here was closed but the church was open.