Mission San Luis Rey de Francia

In my wife’s quest to visit all 21 of the Alta California missions, as well as the 30+ in Baja California some day, we visited one of the later established missions located outside of Oceanside. Known as the "king of the missions" because of its prosperity, President Abraham Lincoln returned it to the Catholic Church in 1865 after ten years of use as an operational base by U.S. soldiers. That original order, with President Lincoln’s signature, is on display in the mission’s excellent museum.