After our challenging round of disc golf, we headed south on 101 towards San Miguel to our second Harvest Host experience at a lavender farm. We travelled through lots of agricultural areas and rolling hills and began to notice, along the highway, metal shepherd hooks with bells. Thanks to Google we discovered we were travelling along the Historic El Camino Real which translates as the “The Royal Highway” or “The King’s Highway” but is also known as the California Mission Trail. We read about the history of the Franciscan missionaries that built 21 missions from San Francisco to San Diego between 1769 and 1833 as part of the Spanish expansion. The missions and outposts were roughly 30 miles apart which was a long day’s travel from site to site. We also read about the tragic impacts the missions brought to the original people living on the land. To some, these historic markers and missions are not a pleasant reminder of this era in history and in some areas the bells along the highway are being removed. One of the missions was located at San Miguel so we stopped by to take in the architecture – this mission was established in 1797 which would have been the 16th mission. A new church with a tile roof and courtyard were built between 1816 and 1818 and much of the original building still stands. While it was interesting to see the historic architecture (we don’t have a lot of structures this old in the western US), it was incredulous to read there are over 2,200 Native Americans buried in the cemetery – a sign of the horrific injustice served in the name of territorial expansion.