Mission San Luis

This past Sunday we went to our first real tourist destination. We went to the Mission San Luis. It’s a Spanish-built mission from the 1600s but it was also the home of a sizable community of converted natives. The Apalachee nation moved their capital to the mission and a blended culture developed. They played ball on Fridays and went to Mass on Sundays. The really neat thing about the place is that they have all the major buildings reconstructed so in addition to the artifacts in the visitor center you can walk through the friary, the church and the Apalachee meeting hall. They have them all set up like they were in use with beds and vow-of-poverty-style mattresses, simulated bread products, old knives, and cooking pots with actual ash on them. It’s really neat to be there in those spaces that feel really old but be able to fully interact with them because they aren’t actually old and valuable. The place has re-enactors too. We were there on the weekend so there weren’t very many re-enactors there but there were little stations set up all around where people could cook, weave, smith, shoot cannon, and thatch roofs. This might be a place to go back and look at again. Also, there are picnic tables everywhere so we might just go picnic. Our picnic blanket is one of the few things not absolutely essential that made it with us.