Outdoors with Don Q: Selected personal memories from the year 2012

As I look forward to the year of 2013 with high expectations, hopes and dreams, this is a good time to reflect back on some selected personal memories from the rapidly ending year of 2012.
Here are my top memories of this year:

A special visitor at the Quilici cabin
That cabin is located on a mountainside between Portola and Davis Lake, California and it is visited by many mule deer during the course of the year.
One of those visitors was a doe who became a frequent visitor and who became more and more accustomed to our presence outdoors.
One day, while Elaine and I were quietly seated in folding chairs in front of the cabin, the doe walked up to Elaine, sniffed her hand, walked around behind her, sniffed her neck, and then slowly ambled down the hillside.
That's the closest that either one of us have been to a live deer.

A return trip to Mitchell Lake, British Columbia
In August, I had the opportunity for a return trip to Mitchell Lake, which is in a remote location in Cariboo Mountains Provincial Park.
You reach that lake by taking a one-hour flight from Williams Lake, B.C. in either a float plane or a helicopter. This year we flew in a helicopter.
At Mitchell Lake, we stayed in an executive lodge compound, complete with generator lights, hot and cold water, flush toilets, electric coffee pot, microwave oven, refrigerator/freezer, TV set for watching DVD movies, etc.
And, as we did last time, the fishing was awesome while trolling from boats.

Canning Bing Cherries in brandy
Once again, Elaine and I canned Bing Cherries marinated in brandy.
It is not a complicated process: You buy several cases of pint-sized canning jars with lids, lots of Bing Cherries and bottles of your favorite brandy.
Then, you fill each jar with cherries, pour in brandy until it is over the top of the cherries, put a lid on each jar and store for future use. You're done!
Over time, the cherries will slowly become brandied and make a great addition, together with an orange slice, to a Manhattan cocktail during the course of many "Happy Hours."

Fishing in the Yukon
In June, we took a 10-day vacation trip to the Yukon to visit our good friends, Barry and Susan Drury, who live in Watson Lake.
While on that trip, we fished at Finlayson Creek for Arctic Grayling.
That "Creek" which is twice as big as the Truckee River, crosses under the Robert Campbell Highway, through two giant culverts.
There is a giant pool where the water flows out of those culverts and we caught and released countless Graylings up to 18 inches in length.
Catching grayling was another item crossed off my "Bucket List."

Lunches at Bordertown, Nevada:
When we drive from Carson City to our cabin, we usually stop to have lunch at the restaurant at Bordertown on the Nevada-California state line.
Over the years, we have become such frequent regulars there that all the hostesses, the waitresses and the bus boys know us by sight and/or name.
It is always an enjoyable eating stop, plus as a bonus, the food is superb.
My favorite order is: A cheeseburger with no onions, French fries and either coffee or iced tea, depending on the time of the year.
Great food and great service always equal a great time at Bordertown.

Replacing our personal computer at the cabin:
Our computer up there was bought way back in 2003 and it was slow on an unreliable dial-up system, so we decided it was time to up-grade.
Then end result was: The old desk top was replaced with a lap top which does not have dial-up capability, which required us to get "Tethering" on our I-Phones for wireless hookup to the Internet, which required us to replace our two-year old I-Phone 3's with brand new I-Phone 4's. Geez!
And, guess what: After all kinds of struggles and all kinds of money, the new lap top computer at the cabin works just perfectly. Whew!

Vacationing at La Quinta, California in March
Sal and Catali Quilici of Dayton, together with Elaine and I, drove to La Quinta, way down in Southern California.
We had been invited to join Don and Norma Reasons of Carson City for several days of relaxation at their friend’s home, located across from the ninth green at the PGA West – Stadium Golf Course in La Quinta.
It was a chance to temporarily escape the winter weather of Western Nevada, and the lawns were lush green, flowers were blooming, trees were loaded with fruit, people were in shorts and temperatures were in the 70’s!

Visiting the Bishop Creek area of California:
This last fall we went to that area for two reasons: To photograph the fall colors of the Quaking Aspen trees and to fish for rainbow trout.
The fall colors were absolutely spectacular, and especially so on the drives to South Lake and then to Lake Sabrina. The best we've ever seen anywhere.
The fishing at Lake Sabrina was unbelievably successful with action on each and every cast with our No. 2, red/white striped Tor-P-Do lures.
Plus as a bonus, Cabin No. 08 at Parchers Resort where we stayed two nights had the water lines switched resulting in hot water in our toilet.

Finally:
I hope that you have as many pleasant memories of the year 2012 as I have.
It was a great year and I hope that 2013 will be even better.

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can’t tell you which of the above memories was the very best of the year.
If he grins and says, “Don will tell you that his best memory for 2012 was all of the memories listed above," he is either a relative or a close friend of ours.

— Writer Don Quilici is the Outdoor editor for Carson Now and www.SouthTahoeNow.com. He can be reached at donquilici@hotmail.com