San Francisco Solano Mission

Founded in 1823, this was the last and northernmost of 21 Franciscan missions built a day's walk apart the length of California. The missions were established to convert the indigenous people into the Spanish colonial empire. The mission system stopped when Alta California gained independence from Spain and Mexico took over its governance.

I love the mission architecture. It is fairly prevalent in different forms throughout the West but as the name suggests, the missions represent the concept of adobe bricks, wooden roof beams covered by wooden sticks or latigas and red curved tiles. The Sonoma mission was looking appropriately festive today with its simple spruce branches tied with red ribbons.

We had our own mission to accomplish and parked next to the big central Sonoma plaza near the immaculately preserved Model A Ford* with it's own Christmas wreath on the front. I don't think either the wreath or the cheerful yellow color would be considered authentic as Model A's were famous for having been designed by Henry Ford to be sensible and affordable for the middle class working person and came only in black...or perhaps that was the Model T which proceeded it by 20 years.

My parents had a Model A Ford*, which they called 'Chipsy' which is one of my earliest childhood memories. I'm pretty sure there was a story connected with her acquisition, but I don't remember it. Perhaps my brother will as he loved cars as a small boy, knew the make and model of every car on the road and probably still does, though the list of makes has grown considerably since he was five years old.

I think the yellow one is very spiffy and I especially liked the beautifully crafted suitcase mounted on the back of the car.

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