{"id":5065,"date":"2016-05-26T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T13:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=5065"},"modified":"2016-05-22T13:24:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T20:24:23","slug":"the-mission-inn-cont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=5065","title":{"rendered":"The Mission Inn – The End of a Perfect Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n

(continued from Monday)<\/p>\n

Will Rogers<\/strong>\u00a0probably defined the Mission Inn<\/strong> best\u00a0when he said, \u201cIt is the most unique hotel in America. It\u2019s a monastery, a museum, a fine hotel, a home, a boardinghouse, a mission, an art gallery and an aviator\u2019s shrine. It combines the best features of all of the above.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"chapel2\"<\/a>

The Chapel and our Docent<\/p><\/div>\n

The chapel at the Mission Inn<\/strong> is stunning and is a National Historic Landmark<\/strong> with two original stained glass windows by Lewis Tiffany, yes, that Tiffany<\/strong>, and an alter that is 25 feet tall and 16 feet across completely covered with three coats of 18-karat gold leaf. The \u2018Garden of Bells\u2019<\/strong> has over 800 bells including one dating to 1247<\/strong> described as the \u2018oldest bell in Christendom\u2019<\/strong>. In 1932<\/strong>, son Frank Miller<\/strong>, who had by then taken over for dad, C. C., put up a \u2018Famous Flyers Wall\u2019 <\/strong>recognizing over 150 notable aviators<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There are so many nooks, crannies, artifacts and stories that go with them that I couldn\u2019t begin to cover them all here; those who have been there know what I mean and I\u2019m not a good enough writer to describe it to those who haven\u2019t \u2013 just go!<\/p>\n

Our docent worked overtime as after our tour she took us to the Presidential Lounge<\/strong> and asked us to get an adult beverage and follow her to a roof-top terrace where we watched the sunset. She told us that a song popular at the beginning of the 20th century, was written by Carrie-Jacobs Bond<\/strong>, a hotel guest in 1909<\/strong>, \u00a0and was composed as she watched from the hotel as the sun set behind Mt. Rubidoux<\/strong>, just as we were doing. The song is called\u00a0\u2018The End of a Perfect Day\u2019<\/em><\/strong> and I think it accurately summed up my time there.<\/p>\n

\"MI<\/a>

The Mission Inn during the holidays<\/p><\/div>\n

Most visitors like to go to the Mission Inn<\/strong> during the holidays when it is resplendent with nearly 4 million Christmas lights and 400 animated figures<\/strong>, but I’d never gone thinking that I hate crowds and Google has lots of pictures, but now, after seeing how amazing this place is, I can’t wait to see it over the holidays this year. Besides, I know there\u2019s some secret tunnels and catacombs just waiting to be uncovered . . . that would make it ‘The End of a Perfect Day’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Additional photos<\/p>\n

Top of Mt. Rubidoux today and an Easter Sunrise Service back in the day<\/p>\n

\"Sunrise\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\"Mt.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bridge over the Santa Ana River (If you don’t see any water, no need to adjust your glasses, it is now dry, so Riverside should be renamed ‘DryRiverBedside’)<\/p>\n

\"River\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the left is the Chamber of Commerce photo of the view from Mt. Rubidoux, my photo is on the right<\/p>\n

\"mt<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"smog\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interior Stairwell and Chapel at night at the Mission Inn<\/p>\n

\"MI<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\"chapel\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow (continued from Monday) Will Rogers\u00a0probably defined the Mission Inn best\u00a0when he said, \u201cIt is the most unique hotel in America. It\u2019s a monastery, a museum, a fine hotel, a home, a boardinghouse, a mission, an art gallery … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[813],"tags":[2198,2197,2195,2199,2196],"class_list":["post-5065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-famous-flyer-wall","tag-garden-of-bells","tag-mission-inn","tag-the-end-of-a-perfect-day","tag-tiffany"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MI-Xmas.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-1jH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5065"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5106,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065\/revisions\/5106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}