California Missions: Santa Barbara « Those Crazy Schuberts

At the end of September, Andrew and I took a VERY SHORT day trip to Santa Barbara.

But I made sure to fit in a trip to the Santa Barbara Mission.

I hadn’t been there since 4th grade (which I remember because I was doing a school project about it). I want to eventually visit ALL the California missions with Andrew. So far we’ve got this one and San Luis Obispo (almost 3 years ago).

We got to the mission just after a wedding ended – which is why there was a big crowd in front of the chapel.

From Wikipedia:

Mission Santa Barbara, also known as Santa Barbara Mission, is a Spanish mission founded by the Franciscan order near present-day Santa Barbara, California. It was founded December 4, 1786, the feast day of Saint Barbara, as the tenth mission for the religious conversion of the indigenous local Chumash—Barbareño tribe of Native American people.

We paid our $5 each to walk through the mission.

Touted as a “tour”, it was really just a short walk around the edge of the courtyard, through the cemetery, through the chapel and then through the small museum. All marked by zombie-looking friar sign posts.

But really, helping maintain something historic like the mission is exactly what I like to spend my money on, so who cares.

I loved all these old photos of the Franciscans who have worked out of the mission over the last several centuries.