As the great Randy Newman sang it, I love L.A.! Actually, not so much. But we did travel through more parts of L.A.
than I think I’ve ever seen before except when flying by on the freeway (which didn’t
count).
The first stop of the day (not in my book – ha!) was for
lunch with my Uncle Deeno and his lovely leading lady Marilyn. They happen to live just a mile from my bike
route for the day!
But the first tour stop of the day was Mission San Fernando
Rey, which is kind of hard to imagine as it originally was: although there are
quite a few reconstructed buildings, it has been so engulfed by city that you’d
never know by looking at it that it was once surrounded by fields for farming
and wilderness.
The mission is currently used for a church, and when we
arrived we were told that the chapel and Bob Hope Memorial Gardens would be
closed for the next hour plus for a funeral.
But that worked out fine for us, because there were quite a few other
things to see.
The museum for this mission felt more like it was several
museums, because they were located in different buildings and not arranged in
any logical way to make them feel linked together. One wing demonstrated how different workshops
(leather, blacksmith, wool, etc) would have looked like. One building was a demonstration of how the
Mayordomo’s home would have looked.
Another two wings (separated by a garden) were more typical museums,
with shelves of artifacts and walls of paintings and other art and religious
pieces.
The strange part about this mission’s museum areas (the ones
with shelves of artifacts) was how they were arranged and what they
contained. It took us a lot longer to
look through than other mission museums of similar size because it was
disorganized, and poorly labeled (some labels were missing, some were placed on
the wrong shelf, or on the wrong artifact, or on the wrong side of the room). But more importantly, the museum felt
cluttered with what I would consider junk: quite a bit of the “artifacts” were
actually fairly modern things that had come from the gift shop of this or other
missions within the last few decades. There
were all sorts of trinkets and tchotchkes, including quite a few coffee mugs of
the standard souvenir type. Not all of
them were even related to this mission or any mission, or even to the region
(for example, there was a cheap souvenir statue of a Plains Indian).
But the worst part of having all those dust collectors of
modern times mixed up with the mission artifacts was that, since they were not
organized, you had to look at each item to find things of interest and great
historical significance. And they
actually had quite a good collection hidden amongst the clutter:
A Frederic Remington bronze statue called “The
Rattlesnake” (which may be an original, or at least is an excellent reproduction) which was half hidden behind a cheap reproduction of a painting
of the “Red Car” trolley.
An original medallion from the Lewis and Clark expedition,
which they gave to the Native American tribes that they came across as a symbol
of peace.
The holy oil used to anoint Father Serra’s body after his
death (which were displayed with some recent souvenir stamps and cheap
medallions depicting Father Serra).
But the worst offense of this mission’s displays was in their theater room, shown in the following
photo. This was of bits of bone from one
of the mission’s original padres, which is being displayed in a cheap plastic
Swingline container. And, to add insult to insult (yes, I know that’s not the
phrase, but it’s accurate in this instance), the holy remains are displayed
right alongside a cheap souvenir coffee mug, which is of dubious historical
significance at all, and certainly not of enough merit to be displayed with
human remains of any kind, much less those of such stature as a holy man and a mission
founder.
Having taken our time hunting for treasures and admiring the
chapel and gardens, it was time for lunch!
We went to Moore’s Delicatessen in Burbank, an excellent choice! I had a
delightful open faced sandwich of mushrooms and brie on Ciabatta, and a wonderfully
large mocha (and that was the smallest size available! Happy day!)
But the most unique and entertaining part of the deli was
the back dining room, where we ate, which had been decorated by Nickelodeon
artists with cartoon characters all over the walls.
By the time we finished lunch and made it to the second
mission of the day, San Gabriel, it was too late to tour there, so we settled
into our second hotel of the trip with plans for an early start to see the
mission before beginning tomorrow’s ride.
Luckily our hotel is only a few blocks away from the mission.
Today’s route: http://ridewithgps.com/users/179553/routes
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