Our mission for today: A visit to Mission Concepcion

Happy Valentine’s Day! Joan and I celebrated by taking a short side trip to another of the several Spanish missions that dot the San Antonio River here in San Antonio.

For the first time in days we woke up to warm sunshine. It was a refreshing change from the steady downpours of recent days. Temperatures rose into the mid-70s today and we took advantage of the weather by making a short 1.1 mile trip to Mission Concepcion.

During our bus trips downtown we have passed by the mission several times and during our visit to Mission San Jose a couple weeks ago the ranger told us that Mission Concepcion is the best preserved and most original of the five area missions.

So wearing my shorts for the first time in two weeks we headed out about 2 p.m. for the visit.

There is something magical and awe inspiring to be standing in a building that remains essentially the same as when it was built by Native Americans 250 years ago.

The missions in Texas, much like the missions in California, Arizona and Florida were established by Spain to spread not just Catholicism, but the Spanish empire into the New World. The idea was to create converts – and new taxpayers – for Spain.

While the intent of the friars was to “save” the Indians, some of their methods would be considered cruel by today’s standards.

The friars and Indians at the missions were sometimes the target of attacks by the not-so-peaceful Comanche’s, who did not want to be civilized by the friars. In addition to creating communities, the missions also served as defensive forts from the attacks from the hostile Comanche’s.

Mission Concepcion continues as an active Catholic Church with services each week on Sunday. The restoration work inside the mission includes some painstaking work to uncover the ancient artwork that was covered by decades of dust and dirt.

(To see more photos of the mission scroll down after this entry to see more Mission photos).

The church grounds include a peaceful grotto where Joan and I spent some time in quiet reflection amidst the beautiful statues and rock work.

After visiting the mission we returned to the RV park and took our daily walk around the park and found that a new license plate showed up today – Mississippi. That’s the one state every kid learns how to spell in school.

Probably easier to tell you what states we haven’t seen in the park in the 3 ½ weeks we’ve been here: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Georgia and the District of Columbia.

 After our walk we headed back to the trailer and got dressed for the Valentine’s Dinner in the park. The park folks cooked up a wonderful sit-down dinner for about 30 people in the recreation center.

 We sat with a nice couple, Jim and Sue, from Ontario, Canada and Sue, a lady from Minnesota who spends the entire winter here.

 I had the chicken dinner and Joan had the salmon and we were very impressed with the quality of the food.