Retracing Footsteps

Opening today at the mission was Lewis & Clark Expedition Across America. This children’s exhibit focuses on the explorers’ experience: befriending American Indians, tracking wild animals, and enduring a transcontinental journey. I can imaging school kids next week playing with the period costumes and teepee, building with Lincoln Logs, smelling the plants, and being grossed out by the animal remains…although the prairie dog pelt was kind of cute. There’s even a “Wheel of Misery” (or at least that’s what I think it’s called) that told me I survived falling from a bluff. Nasty!

Two of my sisters and I spent this afternoon checking out the new addition and amusing ourselves with the Thomas Jefferson quotations. (Being voting season, anything said by a politician gets responded to by a smirk!) For adults, the California Exhibition Resources Alliance has sponsored Lewis and Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day. Photographer Greg MacGregor retraced the path forged by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition. He documents not untouched nature but modern reality, yet his black and white pictures still convey a wild and historical feel. If you take a look at the photos online or in his book, Lewis and Clark Revisited: A Photographer's Trail, you’ll see what I mean. Mission San Juan Capistrano’s a small organization not really known for hosting major traveling museum exhibits, but this photo one was a good choice.