After spending an enjoyable evening with Martha, we drove south to San Luis Obispo, the town of Randall’s birth and where he and Martha had grown-up. Our mission was to attend Randall’s 50th High School Reunion. He had been to the 20th Reunion but none since so it was going to be quite interesting to see whom he recognized and who remembered him. Arriving early on Friday afternoon (September 16th) we had a bit of time to enjoy the fine weather and walk downtown. I had visited San Luis Obispo with Randall a couple of times previously but always passing through on the way to see relatives (or visiting from Tregoning in Morro Bay, to get myself an x-ray after the dinghy landed on my foot) so it was enjoyable to be able to actually orient myself a little in the town.

San Luis Obispo has become a very trendy, tourist destination, in large part because of the many surrounding vineyards. The downtown area has some attractive streets, a pleasant river-side path, and the 5th of the 21 Spanish missions that were built in the part of the Spanish Empire called Alta California, what is now the US State of California. Established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order between 1769 and 1833, the missions were part of a major effort by the Spanish to expand Christianity among the Native Americans and to colonize the most northern and western parts of Spain's North American claims.

Missions were settlements with a church, many associated buildings (as many as 100), agricultural communes, and associated industries into which native people were coerced. While the missionaries introduced productive elements into the region, such as European fruits, vegetables, cattle, horses, ranching and technology, there were also many serious negative consequences to the Native American populations such as loss of land, native culture and language, and, most significantly, the introduction of European diseases.

After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the mission system was secularized with priests only allowed to perform their spiritual duties. Local governors were appointed to manage the remainder of the mission properties, and the residents were dispersed back to their native villages or to work as little more than serfs on the Mexican-held ranchos. Virtually none of the land that had been held in trust for the native people was returned to them. Alta California became part of the US in 1848 and within two years was granted statehood.

Although most of the mission properties were divided and privatized, many of the churches have now been preserved even though they may have been extended or rebuilt several times in wood or adobe, often due to earthquakes, fires, or prolonged disuse. We have visited missions in the past (Mission Santa Barbara and Mission Dolores in San Francisco, for example) and on our travels in 2016 we added four more to the list, although one was not part of the California system, and these are listed below in order of their establishment

In September, we visited the fifth Spanish mission to be built in California, Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa which was founded in 1772 by Father Junípero Serra. Named after Saint Louis of Anjou, the bishop of Toulouse, the mission is the namesake of the city and county of San Luis Obispo (Obispo = bishop). It is the only mission to have two naves forming an L-shape. The local Native American population was the Chumash who were a friendly tribe. Their population at the time of the building of the mission may have been between 10,000 and 15,000 although this was probably already somewhat reduced from earlier numbers due to exposure to crews of Spanish ships visiting the coast prior to 1770. Smallpox and influenza reduced the tribe to 200 by 1900, but current population estimates are between 2,000 and 5,000 people.



Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa with a modern statue of bears and a child sharing a pond in the foreground

In May, we had visited Mission Santa Clara de Asís (in Santa Clara, just north of San Jose) which was founded in 1777 as the 8th Spanish mission in California. This was the first mission to be named for a woman, Saint Clare of Assisi the foundress of the Order of the Poor Clares (the second Franciscan Order to be established), and the only mission currently located on a university campus. The mission was never abandoned despite being ruined and rebuilt six times.

The native people in this area were the Ohlone who in 1777 numbered more than 10,000 in many settlements of 200 to 500 people. These Indians were quite combative between their own settlements but they were drawn to the comfort of shelter, clothing, and food in the mission and never showed any aggression to the Franciscans. Although the padres of the mission hoped to instill values and skills in the Ohlone that would help them cope with the influx of colonizers, the native population was persecuted by unscrupulous land-grabbers and they were decimated by disease, so that by 1850 their population had diminished to 2,500. A few of their descendants, in small bands of family groups, are trying to obtain Federal recognition as the Ohlone Indian Tribe.

Around the same time, we visited Mission San José located in the current city of Fremont. It was founded in 1797 as the 14th Spanish mission in California. Unlike most other missions which are about a long-day’s walk apart, this mission is only 13 miles from Santa Clara and so was also established in the homeland of the Ohlone people. It had been intended that the mission would be built further north but the people there were fiercely opposed to the Spanish.



Randall inside Mission San José viewing the balcony that has been painted on the walls above the paintings

In July, we had visited the Mission of the Sacred Heart near Coeur d'Alene (a.k.a. Cataldo Mission). Although the first chapel at the mission was established in 1842, the existing church was built in 1850-1853, a decade after the dismantling of the California mission system. The church is the oldest standing building in Idaho and was built by the Jesuit missionaries and the Native Americans using the wattle and daub method without use of a single nail. The Coeur d'Alene Indians had heard of powerful “medicine men” in black robes who carried a particular book, so they had requested some of these priests for their own tribe. There are currently about 2,000 members of this tribe.

Though they had few materials with which to decorate the church, the Coeur d’Alene natives used ingenious techniques to beautify it. The walls were decorated with fabric bought from the Hudson's Bay Company and hand-painted newspaper that their priest had received in the mail. Tin cans were used to create an idea of chandeliers. There are two wooden statues which were carved by hand with nothing but a knife. The blue coloring of the interior wood is not paint but a stain created by pressing local huckleberries into the wood. Jesuit brothers lived in the parish house on the site until 1918, by which time the mission had become a prosperous hay ranch.



Inside Mission Cataldo showing the tin-can chandeliers and the blue-stained wood of the ceiling


On Saturday morning, we also drove around San Luis Obispo to see the school Randall had attended and each of the three houses where he had lived. Combined with meeting several of his High School friends the previous evening at the Reunion Meet-and-Greet, this tour of the town was accompanied by an entertaining running-commentary of reminiscences, and gasps of astonishment at things that had changed.

We walked downtown to the Reunion dinner that evening, which was a good idea in that we did not have to worry about how much we drank, but the walk back seemed considerably longer and steeper after we had bought a box of six bottles of local wines at the fund-raising auction. Randall was really pleased that he had been able to attend this reunion and it was marvelous to see him so happily engaged with the many people he remembered. Despite only knowing the people I had met the night before, I had a good time also. It helped that it was my birthday so I had something to celebrate as well (Randall had fed me various treats throughout the day), and there was an excellent selection of 1960s music. After the dinner and speeches, we found ourselves surrounded by enthusiastic dancers and while I was more than a decade younger than most of the crowd, it was hard work to keep-up with the pace.



Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe seen from the top of Fannette Island

We left San Luis Obispo very early on Sunday morning and in clear sunny conditions had a lovely drive north to Sacramento and then east to Lake Tahoe. Here we embarked on a large powerboat that was a recent purchase by Tom and Karen (with whom we had spent July 4th in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho). With our other friend Tom and some others, we motored out to Emerald Bay which is a beautiful cove on the west side of the large lake. We had a delightful afternoon that included a bracing dip on the crystal-clear but cold water, a stroll around the outside of the interesting-looking mansion of Vikingsholm and to the nearby waterfall, and a delicious dinner and conversation late into the night back on the boat.



Morning sun on the granite hills surrounding Emerald Bay

Vikingsholm was built in 1929 as a summer home for Mrs. Lora Josephine Knight in a late 19th and early 20th century Scandinavian style, from materials mostly found in the Lake Tahoe area. Mr. and Mrs. Knight were obviously wealthy and were principal sponsors of Charles Lindbergh's non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.



Randall rowing on Lake Tahoe towards Tom and Karen’s boat with Fannette Island beyond

The following morning Randall rowed the dinghy out to drop a couple of us on Fannette Island in the middle of the Bay. We scrambled up the rocky path to the remains of the Old Lady’s Tearoom that Mrs. Knight had commissioned and in which she enjoyed her afternoon tea. Only the four granite walls were left but the views were still magnificent.



Looking through the window frame of the Old Lady’s Tearoom to the mouth of Emerald Bay

Randall had sailed on Lake Tahoe several times in his previous boat and so knew Emerald Bay well. I had only seen the lake in winter from a visit to one of the hotels on the east side and from skiing at Heavenly Ski Resort. The lake was quite different without its rim of mountains being covered in a mantel of snow but it was still incredibly beautiful. The following morning, as we returned to the south end of the lake, the atmosphere was hazy due to a forest fire a little further south so it looked a bit more like the Smoky Mountains than the Sierra Nevada. After another round of thank-yous and farewells, we were on the road again and heading towards Denver.



California’s version of smoky mountains at Lake Tahoe