Aviva and I decided to bundle up the pooches and be a tourist – we drove out to Mission San Gabriel Archangel.  Here’s the blurb on the Mission from the one page flier you get for the $5 admission fee:

Founded in 1771, only two years after the discovery of the Sari Gabriel Valley, San Gabriel Mission is rich in California history. To provide our visitors with historical information, the map on other side of this paper has been keyed to various points of interest and annotated to enrich your visit.
Father Antonio Cruzado, the church building designer, was born and raised in Cordova, Spain. The Moorish influence is evidenced by the buttressed walls, vaulted roof and fortress-like appearance of the church.
The original vaulted roof and ceiling were damaged by an earthquake in 1804. The replacement roof, a flat roof of brick and mortar, was damaged in the 1812 earthquake. The third was a pitched roof of tiles; another was added in 1886. The present roof is made of cedar shingles and was installed in 1993 on recommendation of the State Office of Historical Preservation as part of the restoration project after the Oct. 1, 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake.
The walls are original, more than four feet thick, with sections through the buttresses as much as seven feet thick.
As you enter the church, the choir loft is at your left. The loft and its support beams are original. For a long time the only way to reach it was by an outside stairway. Then in 1908 the inside stairs were constructed.
As you proceed to the front of the church, the first door on your left is the original entrance. This door was reopened after the seismic strengthening was completed in 1993. The small room on the right is the baptistry with its original domed ceiling, floor and walls. Inside is the original hand hammered copper baptismal font. The silver baptismal shell brought from Spain in 1771 also is still being used today.

We then drove to Pasadena and walked around for a while – we had dinner at Mi Piace, an Italian place right on Colorado Blvd., the main drag in Pasadena. Then we drove home.