Revisited Presidio Park today, this time with my mom and sister, to finally tour the Junípero Serra Museum. During the week it’s really difficult to go inside, probably because it’s only open on weekends. (See my previous post describing who Junípero Serra was. I don’t want to write all that history about who Junípero Serra was again. I’ve moved on in regards to Junípero Serra.)
And now, back to my blog post about Junípero Serra and his museum.
Got there a bit early so I could get a bunch more exterior shots without people in them before the museum opened. Sort of to set the stage for the story. Turns out I didn’t need to worry about people in my shots. There were only two other groups. One was a family of five who got bored and left quickly, and the other was comprised of two women visiting from England whom my mother chatted up for a while in the tower. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of items on display, which actually made the museum feel more open. And nothing in the museum actually had anything to do with Fr. Serra or even about the original mission built there. There was more information about George Marston, the incredible philanthropist who made the museum possible, than there was about Fr. Serra. The few pieces they did have were impressive enough, although not all of them were even from San Diego. And there’s a model of what the presidio looked like in it’s prime, which turns out to be incorrect. The building’s ceiling was, for me, one of the most impressive features with its giant wooden beams. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we could go all the way up to the top of the tower and view not only old photos from the time of the building’s dedication, but also the incredible vistas of the surrounding area with comparisons of how they used to look way back when. That for me was the coolest thing about the museum. Showing what life in San Diego was like back when the building was built and dedicated.
Also didn’t hurt that the girl working the office was easy on the eyes.
( p r e s i d i o p i c s )
