One week ago we visited Mission San Antonio within the military base Fort Hunter Liggett. It was the latest one of my visits to all California Missions along the historic El Camino Royal.
Although reconstructed, San Antonio is the most original looking mission I have seen so far telling in its museum the story that linked the Salinas tribe to this place by tracing the roots of one family. I also did not know that the first Christian wedding in California got performed right here. Places like that speak to me - or better the spirits of the people who lived there speak to me as their fate has been kept alive.
There is no town build around the mission which makes it unique. The hundreds of years old trees and a variety of vegetation and wildlife is as amazing as the architecture of the building itself.
You have to pass the front gate of the military base showing your ID if you want to visit San Antonio which is surrounded by the Santa Lucia Wilderness currently bursting into colors with its blossoming wildflowers. This paradise is still a paradise and has not yet turned into some speculative real estate for rich computer geeks and Hollywood stars (yup, the same one who turned "passive-aggressively green" after they were done pouring concrete into the frugal valleys and orchards of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Barbara and San Fernando). It gets preserved by the army base since William Randolph Hearst sold it to the military in 1940. In fact, if you follow the Nacimiento dirt road across the Santa Lucia Mountains you end up on Highway 1 somewhere in the Big Sur/Jade Cove area, just a few miles short before you hit Hearst Castle nearby San Simeon. It's a gnarly road to drive though even with a four wheel Jeep like Clay's.
The very well kept small road that leads past a fishing pond and a campground into the Los Padres National Forrest is easier to ride than Nacimiento Road once you have made it through the water pathways which don't require four wheel drive but it's for sure more convenient to have it. I loved discovering the wagon cave and the rock that looks like the head of a giant dolphin.
Although reconstructed, San Antonio is the most original looking mission I have seen so far telling in its museum the story that linked the Salinas tribe to this place by tracing the roots of one family. I also did not know that the first Christian wedding in California got performed right here. Places like that speak to me - or better the spirits of the people who lived there speak to me as their fate has been kept alive.
There is no town build around the mission which makes it unique. The hundreds of years old trees and a variety of vegetation and wildlife is as amazing as the architecture of the building itself.
You have to pass the front gate of the military base showing your ID if you want to visit San Antonio which is surrounded by the Santa Lucia Wilderness currently bursting into colors with its blossoming wildflowers. This paradise is still a paradise and has not yet turned into some speculative real estate for rich computer geeks and Hollywood stars (yup, the same one who turned "passive-aggressively green" after they were done pouring concrete into the frugal valleys and orchards of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Barbara and San Fernando). It gets preserved by the army base since William Randolph Hearst sold it to the military in 1940. In fact, if you follow the Nacimiento dirt road across the Santa Lucia Mountains you end up on Highway 1 somewhere in the Big Sur/Jade Cove area, just a few miles short before you hit Hearst Castle nearby San Simeon. It's a gnarly road to drive though even with a four wheel Jeep like Clay's.
The very well kept small road that leads past a fishing pond and a campground into the Los Padres National Forrest is easier to ride than Nacimiento Road once you have made it through the water pathways which don't require four wheel drive but it's for sure more convenient to have it. I loved discovering the wagon cave and the rock that looks like the head of a giant dolphin.
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