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I was in Texas in December and my wife and I had the opportunity to rent some bikes and ride the Mission Trail! San Antonio is the home to five missions built by the Catholic Church, the earliest one being established in 1690. Here is the map of our bike route … it roughly follows El Camino Real (the Royal Road). From the Blue Star Brewery Parking lot, it was a 22 mile round trip visiting four of the five missions. We saw a lot of great birds on this ride too … maybe a follow up post!

The first mission we visited was before we were on the bikes. It is right in downtown San Antonio and you are probably familiar with it with this name: The Alamo. It was one of the five missions on the list, but it is now a historic Texas site and no longer an active Catholic Church. Here’s a night time picture I took of it …

The next four missions are listed below, somewhat in the order of our visiting them.

Mission Concepción

Misión Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña was established in 1716 as Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais in East Texas. The mission was moved in 1731 to San Antonio. Founded by Franciscan friars, this is the best preserved of the Texas missions. It still holds active services.

Mission San José

Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo was established in 1720. Located at 6519 San Jose Drive, it was designated the San Jose Mission National Historic Site in 1941. The historic site was administratively listed on the National Register on October 15, 1966. The church, which is still standing, was constructed in 1768.

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Misión San Juan Capistrano was established in 1716 as Misión San Jose de los Nazonis in East Texas.

The mission was renamed and moved in 1731 to San Antonio. Located on Mission Road, San Juan was listed on the National Register on February 23, 1972.

Mission Espada

Misión San Francisco de la Espada was established in 1690 as San Francisco de los Tejas near present-day Augusta and renamed San Francisco de los Neches in 1721. The mission was moved in 1731 to San Antonio and given its current name. This was the mission the furthest south on the route.

After a twenty+ mile mountain bike tour, it was time to reward ourselves with some great Mexican food at Mi Tierras. If you are in San Antonio, I recommend both of these experiences!

Stumblingpiper

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Last year, my brother and I started a photo contest with each other. It quickly expanded to include other family members. We picked a topic for each month and then submitted from one to three photos depending on that month’s rules. The only stipulation was that you had to use an actual camera, not a cell phone. Here’s a look back at the photo contest through the series of my images:

January: Water. This was any form of water: snow, ice, fog, lake, river, rain, kitchen faucet, etc. I decided to try and get creative and capture a water drop from a piece of ice. Oh, and also I saw a duck. haha.

February/50mm Challenge – This was 50mm lens only, if you use a full-frame camera. If you have DX (Nikon) or Crop (Canon) camera, you could use a 35mm–it produces a 50mm equivalent photo. Also, it was a NO-CROP challenge. You could change color, exposure, contrast, etc, but you had to use the whole image. Here are my shots.

March/Local Architecture – This month’s theme was three pictures within of local architecture and infrastructure. Local was where you were at the time. Each structure had to be man-made. My photos this month were ok … not the greatest. haha.

April/In-Motion – This was simply three images that showed motion — or it could be a 10-second video. Here two of mine — my third is a time-lapse photo: here

May / Black-and-White. Pretty simple–three images in Black and White. Interestingly, these images came from Washington (pond), Saskatchewan (silo), and Colorado (windmill). 

June / New Growth – This was a tough topic for June … but I was able to pull it off and find three images that reflected the idea of new growth. Can you see the baby quail peaking out from its mother’s wing?

July / Darkness — This one was very nebulous — just needed to reflect something about Darkness, so I went with Astrophotography. These images are the same ones from my last “Night Photography” post.

August / Reflected Images — This one was tough! You had to capture a reflection of some sort. It required opportunity and observation. You really had to look to see how the image would turn out! I’m happy with these three …

September / Man versus Nature. Another nebulous one — just needed to show the on-going challenges of man against nature … My three pictures were similar to each other, but I think captured the idea very well.

October / Elements & Moods. This month was a combination of a randomly selected mood (mine was lonely) with a basic element of art (mine was “Form”). My lucky combination made it easy to capture the three following photographs.

November / Numinous. This was tough, because the definition is pretty nebulous. Basically, the pictures should be something “supernatural,” “mysterious,” “holy,” or “appealing to the aesthetic sense.” It also means “nod of the head.” Hopefully you will get that effect from the following three images. haha.

December / Eye of the Beholder! This one was one photo, your best shot, in the eye of the beholder. lol. Here’s my picture:

I hope you enjoyed this trip through the year’s photo contest (from me). Really fun but quite challenging!

James

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