“You’re only as pretty as the way you treat people.” ~ Unknown
I finally processed all my photos from my trip to Texas back in May. One of the many site visits we made during that trip was to the missions along the San Antonio River (the four missions are part of the National Park Service). Ordinarily, the missions were built at least a day’s ride apart, but not these missions. These missions are only about 2.5 miles apart. The four mission churches are still active with scheduled services, and nearly all of them have some level of ruin. There are a lot of fascinating things to learn about these missions, from the way they used local materials to build them to how self-sustaining they were meant to be. This is Mission Espada, the southernmost of the San Antonio missions, and the first we visited. It was the first mission in Texas, originally built in Nacogdoches in 1690 before being moved to its current location in 1731. It’s small, and most of the rest of the mission is in total ruin. But not the church door. Isn’t it incredible? It’s a very unusual shape, and you can read here the many speculations as to why that is, but I’d bet money the Moorish influence was due to a Moor architect. In any case, it and the church are fabulous and inspiring.
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