June 10, 2004—Eagleville, CA Just For the Fun of It
As many know, we recently sold our home of fifteen years and have been hard at work sorting and disposing of possessions. In addition to this, we’re also remodeling our Travel Supreme. After weeks and weeks of this, things got a little tedious so when we heard some good friends were going to be visiting their parents in Eagleville for a week over Memorial Day, Marc decided we should join them. Eagleville is in the extreme northeastern portion of California, very much off the beaten path.
We arrived in advance of our friends, with rainy skies accompanying us. We had two days to get settled and relax and it was great to spend a lot of that time on the computer with Internet out in the middle of nowhere.
By the time Don and Ellen arrived late Saturday evening, we had the welcome sign out in this perfect boondocking spot—the old, abandoned runway which afforded us paved parking and great mountain views.
The primary purpose for the guys on this get together was to ride their bikes. They also spent many hours metal detecting the surrounding campgrounds, city parks, hot springs, and even where the old hangar used to sit on the runway. Not much success with the metal detecting however, as the total take was less than $2.00!
Unfortunately, our friend Ellen came down sick and was bedridden for the better part of three days so she missed a lot of the activity. Marc and I spent one morning in Cedarville, a town more sizable than Eagleville, about 17 miles north. Cedarville’s middle name should be Sleepyville as it’s a pretty quiet place. There are some interesting old buildings, including the first one built here in 1865, which was a trading post. The builder, James Townsend was killed the following year in a fight with the Indians. This building now sits in the nice city park, which is well kept.
Eagleville is equally historic but much smaller. Here are some scenes:
This whole area sits in Modoc County, California and extends into the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Many of the rides Don and Marc went on traversed some rugged back-country BLM with historic value. Numerous dirt roads were too rough or narrow for any vehicle larger than a Jeep, so the guys found traveling on their Hondas just the ticket. This section was originally part of the Applegate Trail, so named in 1846 by a party of settlers bent on finding an alternative wagon trail to the Willamette Valley other than the perilous Columbia Gorge trail.
As befits an area dating from the 1800’s, the guys came across many abandoned and not so abandoned buildings, silent ushers of the past giving just a glimpse as to what life in this desolation must have been like. One of the more modern buildings is called the Stephens Ranch and is available as a courtesy to anyone who happens by. It is equipped with a rustic kitchen and shower, a mattress you probably wouldn’t want to sleep on, and an outhouse. A note asks you to replenish what you use, especially firewood. This was considered a major stop on the trail route due to the presence of water.
the trail>
As if riding the desert wasn’t enough, the guys also went the other direction, up into the steep Warner Mountain range. An azure lake greeted them and provided a welcome break.
We can’t leave out riding the alkali lakes in this area; there are two major ones and we were camped at the end of South Lake which made it easy to get out on. For the most part the water seeming to float upon the surface is all mirage, but one does need to be careful as getting close to the real water (which is very shallow) it is easy to break through the crust and it can become like quick sand under your wheels.
After ten very relaxing days, we headed back to Bend, 250 miles and six hours away; Don and Ellen back to Santa Cruz where their jobs awaited. And the big lizard? He’ll just wait for the next mosquito to fly by.
