12K Mission Reach Walk -- Sun., Feb. 10

60% chance of severe thunderstorms before 9:00 a.m. That was the forecast today. We slept in so as not to walk in the rain today.

I made a pancake and fried egg breakfast to fortify us for 12K (7.2 miles). Our Volksmarch started at Mission San Jose Visitor Center. We started the walk at 2:30 p.m. and finished in two hours, 15 minutes.

Even though we've visited Mission San Jose a couple of times before, we again walked around the mission grounds, back to the grist mill and finished walking around the interior of the mission walls. Then we headed out front past the Visitor Center and walked along streets until we came to an entrance of the Mission Reach Riverwalk.

Mission San Jose Convento.

One of the gates at the mission.

Close-up of the new smile.

Front door of the mission church.

National Park Visitor Center.

We walked past this large park along the river.

The grasses on the right side of the road are bamboo.

El Charro Stadium.

We passed a Rosicrucian building along our walk and I took some photos of it. Neither of us had ever learned about rosicrucianism and have no idea what their beliefs are so I looked it up when we got home. If you'd like to know who they are, you can click on this link.

This must be the Spanish-speaking chapter.

We continued on our way to the Riverwalk Mission Reach. Interpretive signs are located along the path so you can learn about Mission Reach and the history of the area. 

As usual when we do our Riverwalks, we saw lots of birds and even found a turtle on a rock in the middle of the river.

Path is well used by bicyclists, walkers, joggers, skaters and skateboarders.

Great egret in flight.

Roosevelt Ave. bridge next to our RV park.

Great egret checking me out.

Roosevelt Ave. bridge.

Double take--double-crested cormorants.

Single, double-crested cormorant. Look at those big webbed feet!

American widgeon.

American widgeon. A few of these were on the river today.

We can't believe people paddle on this river. It looks like it would be a royal pain. You'd have to keep taking out your watercraft to portage it around dams, low water and rocky rapids. But apparently some people do it.

Spiny softshell turtle.

Our walk took us away from the river to Mission Concepcion. While we were there, a number of people in period dress accompanied by a film-maker were meandering around the mission. I took some photos and wondered who they were and what they were filming.

 I went into the National Park Service office and asked the ranger. Her response, "I have no idea what they're doing. I'm waiting for law enforcement to get here to find out." Okay, then. Moral of this story: Don't go film-making on national park property without getting permission from them first. 

Mission Concepcion.

And here are the people in period dress. It seemed they didn't want their pictures taken as they kept their backs to the camera.

From Mission Concepcion we retraced our steps along the Riverwalk all the way back to Mission San Jose. It was a lovely day for a walk. The temperature was a pleasant, non-muggy, 74 degrees with a light breeze from time to time. There was cloud cover all afternoon.

Travelers Word RV Park from Riverwalk.

Non-native Egyptian geese.

I scoured the internet for another photo of this duck so I could identify it. I found one other photo, but it doesn't say what kind of duck it is. Does anyone know? It's very beautiful and had three ducklings.

Update: Karen correctly identified the above "ducks" as non-native Egyptian geese. They are very distinctive and apparently don't interfere with native species. See this article.

We finished our walk a little before 5:00 p.m. and headed to Taqueria Guadalajara for dinner. It is right across the street from our RV park, reasonably priced and has good food. Our favorite is #27, enchiladas verdes made with chicken. Mmmmm. We were hungry after 7.2 miles and cleaned our plates.

Inside the restaurant--back room.

Looking across the street from the restaurant to the RV park.

We had a great walk today and wouldn't mind doing this walk again and again. It's very pleasant.

Tonight I watched 60 Minutes and Bob went to get a haircut. We were hoping Amazing Race was going to be on, but The Grammy's were on instead. Amazing Race starts next week.

Good night. Travel Bug out.