Personal Observations
Mission San Miguel Arcángel is the closest mission to Highway 101, the modern approximation of the original El Camino Real. Ironically, the next mission north in the chain, San Antonio de Padua, is the most isolated. Easily visible from the highway, my father speed past it many times refusing to stop. My wife and I had been planning for over a month to drive from Los Angeles to San Jose on Christmas day, 2003, to visit her parents. Along the way, we had planned to stop at Mission San Miguel Arcángel for the 9:00 am Christmas mass, and also stop at Mission San Antonio de Padua and Mission Nuestra Sonora de la Soledad. Only three days, almost to the hour, before our planned visit to San Miguel, on December 22, 2003, a 6.5 earthquake struck the area and seriously damaged the mission. When we arrived Christmas morning, all we could do was walk around the mission in a light rain, photographing the mission from the outside as my wife held a large umbrella over my camera. We stopped again on the return drive and while it had stopped raining, the mission was still closed with chain link fence and yellow hazzard tape blocking every entrance. Most of the mission is now open and we plan to return soon and photograph the open parts of what is one of the best preserved missions.
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Photo-Art
Mission Art & Photo-Art
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