Day 186

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Obfuscator writes: Sometime during the last day, Onaxthiel's face had started swelling up, and by night he was looking rather familiar. It was almost like looking in a mirror from back when we were in North Dakota, and my face had swollen up to disturbing proportions, largely closing my eyes. By this morning, Onaxthiel's left eye was almost entirely shut, and his right was heavily swollen as well. Like before, there was no difficulty breathing, or anything else that might indicate allergic reaction, but there was little else that seemed to match the symptoms, and the pollen count we discovered, was quite high. Strangely, I was unaffected by it this time.

Since he was so puffed up as to be nearly useless, Onaxthiel drugged himself with antihistamines, which left him in a drug induced comma all morning. When he eventually came to, we headed off to see the historic Mission San Juan de Capistrano. Apparently it's one of the oldest missions in California still standing, dating back to the late 1700's. It's very pretty, and we took an audio tour around the grounds, where we learned a lot about the history of the Mission and of the area in general. The mission also had a huge stone cathedral that was the pride of the west coast, until it collapsed in an earthquake. The ruins are still there, along with the old bells, and the cemetery, and some other historic buildings. From what they say, it's pretty astonishing that any of it still exists, since it was all falling into ruins before the early 20th century when a Catholic priest made it his mission to restore it. The Mission is also famous for the song When the Swallows Return to Capistrano. The song didn't sing a bell with me, though the title did.

The mission has some very lovely gardens and fountains, again reminding us how pleasant and warm it was in California. They even had a lemon tree, which looked quite appetizing. There's also some workshop areas, and areas that have been dug to reveal the mission's old tallow vats, tanneries, and wine-making facilities. The chapel was undergoing restoration work while we were there, but it was pretty too.

By the time we left the mission, we were getting dehydrated and hungry, so we walked across the street and had some burritos and lemonade. When we were done, we drove east into the mountains and out to Lake Elsinore. From the mountain overlooking Lake Elsinore, you could see pretty far inland, and it was a pretty, winding drive to boot. We got lucky though, in narrowly missing rush hour, since the road was down to one lane with construction for a huge stretch. On our way back, traffic was backed up for many miles going in the other direction.

We got back to our cousin's, and had another dinner, and hung out with him until it was again bed time.

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Photos

Onaxthiel's big puffy eyes

St. Perigrine
patron of cancer and AIDS

the old church
destroyed by and earthquake durring mass in the 19th century

Comments

[John McClelland]

Periorbital edema?