A one-year anniversary at Carson Now

February 09, marks a special day in the life of yours truly.

It is my one-year anniversary writing about the Great Outdoors at Internet website Carson Now.

Time certainly flies when you are having fun, and it has been both a totally enjoyable and a totally memorable year of writing about all kinds of activities in the Great Outdoors, both near and far away.

Best of all, by writing for an Internet website rather than a printed publication, there have been no restrictions on how many weekly articles I can write, there are no restrictions on the length of those articles and no restrictions on how many photographs to run with the articles.

When I previously wrote for a printed publication (AKA a local newspaper), I was restricted to the day of the week, the length and number of articles that could be submitted and to one photograph (not more than two photographs every once in a great while) per week.

At Carson Now, the sky is the limit. That is a big, big difference.
Being biased, I also have a strong intuitive feeling that at some point in the future, those printed newspapers as we know them today, will join hula hoops, dial telephones, tail fins on cars, dimmer switches on floorboards, slide rulers, manual typewriters, home visits by doctors, glass milk bottles, etc., as interesting things of the past.

Thank God for being associated with a classy and well-run Internet website.
Plus at Carson Now, there is the personal pleasure of working with two highly-dedicated “Five Star” individuals, who make it a fun-filled work environment, week in and week out.

I would be remiss if I did not name Kirk Caraway of Carson City (www.carsonnow.org) and Jeff Munson of South Lake Tahoe (www.southtahoenow.com) as those two co-workers.
They are the best. The absolute best!

Kirk and Jeff are very talented professionals, who are making those two websites bigger and better, all the time.

And, they are succeeding beyond all of our expectations!

During this past year, I wrote about a multitude of outdoor activities, and so I thought that it might be fun to recall some of those weekly articles to demonstrate the wide-ranging areas that they covered.

So here are some of my Internet articles from the past year:

February – Having fun on the AmTrak passenger train:

Seven fun-loving people from this area spent Saturday and Sunday, February 12-13, traveling on AmTrak between Reno and Sacramento, Calif.

Those seven train travelers were: Mary Bottoms (Elaine’s Mom), Bob “Slick” and Lynda McCulloch, and Elaine and I, all of Carson City, plus Sal and Catali Quilici of Dayton.

The best part of that entire trip was the five-hour-long cocktail party (up, over and down Donner Summit) in the observation car. It was a blast!

March – Our vacation trip to La Quinta, California:

Sal and Catali Quilici, together with Elaine, her mom and I traveled by two convoying vehicles all the way south to La Quinta, (about 500 miles).
We had been invited to join Don and Norma Reasons of Carson City for several days at one of their friends’ home, located across from the ninth green at the PGA West – Stadium Golf Course in La Quinta.

Sal and I joined Don Reasons in picking boxes of giant-sized oranges, lemons and grapefruit from the trees lining the streets in that neighborhood.

April – A story about catching a giant fish at Lake Tahoe:

It was my highly, detailed story about Elaine and I going to Cave Rock Landing at Lake Tahoe, launching my small inflatable raft and fishing for Mackinaw (Lake) Trout in front of that landing.

I wrote that she tied into a giant Mackinaw, fought it for an hour and finally brought it up next to the raft. The record-breaking fish was longer than my raft, so we had to turn it loose or risk capsizing the raft.
Note: The story ran on April 01 and it was a great “April Fool’s” hoax.

May – Our automobile trip to rural Nevada:

Elaine’s Mom had never been to rural Nevada, so the three of us spent a week touring all kinds of different places.

She had never been to many of the locations where we took her, so she got to experience: Squaw Creek Reservoir, Gerlach, Fallon, Eureka, Great Basin National Park, Lehman Caves, Ely, Tonopah, Hawthorne and Yerington.

If that isn’t a taste of rural Nevada, I don’t know what is!

She loved Ely but did not care for Gerlach, Tonopah and Hawthorne.

June – The unforgettable accident at Lake Tahoe:

I took Kevin Law of Carson City on his first trip in many years to fish at Lake Tahoe for Mackinaw Trout.

We fished with Gene St. Denis of Blue Ribbon Charters and in addition to Kevin catching an 8-pound Mack, there was another long-lasting memory:
Kevin accidentally knocked my digital camera in the water-filled fish well, it sank, he was stunned, I grabbed it out of the water, carefully dried it off, placed it in the sun to dry and lo and behold, it still works. Whew!

July – Walking on snowdrifts to photograph wildflowers:

On July 20, Elaine and I hiked into the Winnemucca Lake area, near Kit Carson Pass, to photograph the wildflowers along the main hiking trail.
On that day, the trail still had big snowdrifts at many different locations.
In several locations, those snowdrifts were actually large, deep snowfields.
You can bet that not too many people in the U.S. (especially those who live in the midwest, southeast, southwest, deep south and our very own Southern Nevada) had the chance to walk on snow on July 20 like we did.

August – Go high to fish, have fun and stay cool:

This was an article on where to go at a number of selected locations such as:

• Frog Lake and Winnemucca Lake, which are both located near the top of Kit Carson Pass on California S.R. 88;
• Kinney Reservoir, Lower Kinney and Upper Kinney Lake, located near the top of Ebbett’s Pass on California S.R. 4;
• The Virginia Lakes complex located just west of Conway Pass on U.S. 395.

Great places to visit to escape the summer heat of our valley floors.

September – A special reminder for fishermen:

Fall is a perfect time of the year for people, who are not planning to fish during the cold weather months, to take care of their fishing equipment.
That “maintenance” includes a whole host of activities such as: Repairing or replacing the eyes on rods; oiling and lubing the reels; striping off the old line and replacing it; cleaning out the tackle box; replacing lost lures, sinkers, snap swivels; having your wife wash your fishing vest; etc.

When all that is done, you are in great shape to begin fishing again.

October – Memories of our six week trip to Italy:

It was an unforgettable trip for Elaine and I, together with my first-cousin Lorraine Scholes and her husband Bob to visit Italy, Sicily and Switzerland.
We traveled the entire length and width of Italy, visited the Island of Sicily and even went into Switzerland on our way to Cortina.

Most impressively, in 44 days of travel, Elaine and I took a grand total of almost 5,000 digital photos. I’m still editing all of those vacation pictures.

If you take that same trip, take lots of money, lots of money, lots of money!

November – Our annual gathering of pine nuts:

This year, Sal and Catali Quilici, plus Elaine and I zeroed in on the Pinon Pine trees located at the top of Sunrise Pass, about 10 miles east of the end of Johnson Lane in Douglas County.

It was right after heavy frosts and strong winds, which are needed to open the pine cones and shake the nuts out onto the ground.

Then, it was just a case of picking up nuts and putting them in a large can.
You bring the nuts home, cook them and enjoy a tasty Mother Nature treat.

December – The annual Don Q Awards:

Each year, as my last article for that year, I present my Annual Don Q Awards for a number of different reasons: Outstanding, good, not so good, bad, serious, funny, dumb, head-scratching, are-you-kidding, etc.

Those annual awards are presented to all kinds of people or places or things for what has occurred throughout the year.

It’s always fun for me and an interesting way to end the year.

Finally, there you have it, a sampling of things that happened in my world last year.

And, 2012 promises to be even better than 2011.

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can’t tell you which of the above is my favorite memory for the year 2011.

If he grins and says, “Heck that’s easy. It is a combination of many memories of the six week vacation trip to Italy, Sicily and Switzerland,” he could be one of the many people who have seen a very, very small number of our digital photos taken on that memorable trip.

Photo Captions:

Photo No. 01:
Bob and Lynda McCulloch of Carson City having way too much fun on the AmTrak train to Sacramento, last February.
Photo by Elaine Quilici

Photo No. 02:
A lemon, grapefruit and orange that were picked off of fruit trees in La Quinta, last March.
Photo by Elaine Quilici

Photo No. 03:
The Eureka Opera House, an often-photographed, historical building in Eureka, Nevada.
Photo by Elaine Quilici

Photo No. 04:
Kevin Law of Carson City with his limit of two Mackinaw (Lake) Trout caught at Lake Tahoe last June.
Photo by Don Quilici

Photo No. 05:
Don Quilici of Carson City hiking across giant snow fields, last July, on his way to fish in Winnemucca Lake, California.
Photo by Elaine Quilici

Photo No. 06:
Sunrise in October, 2011 on the Dolomite Mountains with a church steeple in the foreground at Cortina, Italy.
Photo by Elaine Quilici