Wandering Wednesday: San Juan Bautista

 

Last weekend was time for the Bay Area Modern Quilting retreat held in San Juan Bautista. I love taking pictures of interesting doors that I see, and I got to take this one of an old adobe building with a painted pattern around the doorway. That blue and white pattern would make a great border pattern on a quilt.

At first I thought this striking plant in one of the sidewalk planters was a holly hock, but it is a tree mallow, in the same family as hibiscus. Love those variegated leaves and the striking flower colors.These can grow up to 10 feet tall!

We got together for pre-retreat lunch at Jardines de San Juan after first shopping at Family Threads Quilt Shop. It's a great little shop, well displayed fabric, really good selection and a great tool/notions wall. I love the succulent planter letters that the restaurant has up on the adobe wall.

Such a lovely colorful spot for an outdoor lunch. You can see the very very green hills in the background.

Then it was set up time at the St. Francis Retreat Center. This was the very lovely view out of my window.

I greatly enjoyed the mostly native plant gardens near the workroom and the guest quarters. This is a Yellow or Butter Lupine.

The Redbuds were really in bloom. These are so striking, and the bees love them.

Leaving the workroom at night to return to our room, I noticed the moon shining through the grape pergola. The frogs were really really loud at night, it sounded like a million of them out in the pond.

I had to go check out the pond the next day, and saw no frogs, "only" lizards, ducks, herons and red wing blackbirds.

This tree stump had very interesting shapes, I wished I could have taken a print off of it.

The little creek was completely full of water clover. It looked solid enough to walk on. From far away I thought it was astroturf! It was that intense of a green.

This is a plant I have at home, Pride of Madeira, but this one is much better taken care of, mine needs to be severely pruned back.

I didn't catch a bee on these flowers but they were all a'hummin'.

What a gorgeous place for a quilt retreat, I really loved getting to come back there, and I'm looking forward to coming again next year.