Mission Trip again!

In the summer of 2009 my family, my parents and sister and her kids, went on a tour to visit the Northern most missions in California.  We did this since Noah was going to be in 4th grade and 4th graders study California history and the missions.  We have 2 4th graders this year and decided it was time to finish our quest.  There are 21 missions.  We still haven't seen them all.  So we planned another mission tour for the week of Thanksgiving because we all have this week off.  We all met up at Jolon, California and managed to see 6 missions in 2 days.

We started off with leaving at 5:15am and managed to get to L.A. by 6:30 and hoped that we would get through before rush hour traffic.  We were wrong and it took us an hour to get through it.  Yuck.  We finally made it to Mission San Antonia de Padua by 12pm.  My parents and sister were already there.

After that we drove up to another small mission out in the middle of nowhere called Mission Nuestra de Soledad.  These missions seem to be out in the middle of nowhere, but that is where the padres put them since that was where the people were.  The original mission is just ruins now, but another one has been built  right next to the ruins.

After that we drove to San Juan Baptista.  We drove through some really pretty scenery to get there.  Driving up the 101 and the 1 was fun and at times pretty.

Our last mission of the 1st day was San Carlos  Boromeo de Carmel.  We loved this mission.  It was really pretty and had a great location.  Carmel is beautiful.  We spent the night in Monterey, which is also very beautiful.  We ate at the Crown and Anchor which was a British Pub.  The kids tried fish and chips for the first time as well as popcorn shrimp.  They loved those which surprised me and Damon.  The kids thought it was really cool to go to a "pub".

The next morning we headed out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It didn't disappoint.  We all enjoyed are time there and can't wait to go back.  On our way to the car to leave we passed this cute little cafe so we popped in for some clam chowder in bread bowls with some apple strudel for dessert.  Yum!

We headed down the 101 again to hit San Miguel Archangel.  It was a very humble mission, but nice.

Our last stop was in San Luis Obispo and its mission.  That was a really pretty mission too with nice gardens.  The kids like playing in the gardens and in the fountain out front.  We went to a place called Mo's for dinner.  Our waitress at the Crown and Anchor recommended it.

We thought we left late enough to miss traffic, but again we hit traffic in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.  We didn't get home until 11:30pm.  We were exhausted, but we had so much fun and made many memories that will last a long time.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the fun trip!