E-11 Flight Information

Fellow Extravaganzers:

 

Welcome to the “travel flag is up” notification for Extravaganza 2011.  As in the past years, attached is our recommended travel itinerary on Delta Air Lines for those of you that will be going to Extravaganzaland from the Bay Area.  It is imperative that you coordinate your incoming and outgoing travel plans using the attached recommended travel schedule.  For those of you traveling from locations other than the Bay Area, you should plan to route yourselves through Salt Lake City and connect with the recommended incoming flights from SLC to MSO.  

 

Almost without fail, those in the past who have deviated from our recommended flights have rued the fact that they did so—witness those who have errantly flown on United Air Lines through Denver only to arrive as much as a day late and those who have elected to fly Alaska Air Lines through Seattle only to find their connecting Horizon Air turbo flights problematic (your only other choices in and out of Missoula.  Delta flies only Canadian Regional jets into and out of Missoula and, in case of delay, has more alternate daily flights than all the other airlines combined.

 

We meet and greet you at the Missoula airport on your arrival and take you back on departure day.  With Extravaganza Headquarters a full 45 minutes distant from the Missoula airport, in fairness to you and other members of your group, a single arrival time and a single departure time will make sure that a superior time will be had by all (including me)!!  There are no reasonable cab fares between MSO and our Rock Creek headquarters and car rental is in its peak season.  Hence, caveat Extravaganzer!

 

Attached is a current roster of E-11 participants such that you can first locate what group you are in.  (Note that we yet have a handful of open slots in Group One and two open slots in Group Three.)  Then toggle over to www.delta.com to make your reservations.  Arrival and departure dates for each of the three groups are as follows:

 

            Group One travels to Missoula on Saturday, June 18^th and returns home on Wednesday, June 22^nd.

 

            Group Two travels to Missoula on Saturday, June 25^th and returns home on Wednesday, July 29^th.

 

            Group Three travels to Missoula on Saturday, July 2^nd and returns home on Wednesday, July 6^th.

 

Once your reservations are made, then send your reservations via email to our Extravaganza Coordinator Extraordinaire, Patty Gallia for logging into our master travel calendar.

 

Three items of note:  (1) current round trip fares for each group hover in the $400/person range from OAK, the $500/person range from SFO and the $600/person range from SMF; (2) as the planes fill up, these prices are only going to go up and/or the space will vanish so, in order to pay less for the same experience, ‘book ‘em now, Danno”; and (3) last year United Air Lines had (wonderful) non-stop a daily to/fro flight between SFO and MSO—we have reached out to UAL at their Ft. Worth headquarters and they simply don’t know yet (or aren’t telling us) if they are going to reinstate those daily flights, which they discontinued on November 3^rd—as an abundance of caution and with your pocket book in mind, don’t delay your bookings in (perhaps futile) hopes that UAL will reinstate its admitted experiment of last year.

 

Call if you have any questions, folks; but do not tarry!!

 

Best to all in the early planning stages of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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p.s.  For your convenience, this and other E-11 correspondence is posted to (y)our E-11 blogsite which is now up and running and where you can now here Bob Wire’s rendition of The Ballad of Rock Creek Ron!!

 

  

Sno Mo'

What a year-round extravagant rush this place is!!

 

RCR

 

  

An Extravagnt Study in Contrasts

Is there an element of truth here, gang?!?

 

Enjoy!

 

Best from MT,

 

RCR

 

 The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.

    A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites the Governor.

    1.  The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

    2.  He calls  animal control .  Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

    3.  He calls a veterinarian.  The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

    4.  The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

    5.  The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.

    6.  The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness program" for residents of the area.

    7.  The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

    8.  The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack.  The State spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re:  the nature of coyotes.

    9. PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files a $5 million suit against the State.


 Montana :

    The Governor of Montana is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.  A Coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.

    1. The Governor shoots the coyote with his State-issued pistol and keeps  jogging. The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP  hollow point cartridge.

    2. The Buzzards eat the dead coyote. 

    And that is why California is broke and Montana is not! 

 

Images from Montana Vol 2

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Winter Montana Images (1 of 2)

Greetings from Montana, Fellow E-11ers!!

 

Keeping with tradition, your Hostess With the Mostess, Kocktail Kathy, and I are back here at Extravaganza Headquarters to welcome the new year in with élan.  Upon our arrival, we hooked up for lunch with Montana Matters painter Sven Lindauer (Sven did the master MM painting that adorns the campaign’s literature, the original of which now proudly hangs in our Blackfoot House) to pick up a commissioned painting of Ma’am, (y)our Extravaganza mascot, which now proudly hangs in our Rock Creek living room.  It is always fun to compare the original photo with the finished art, and the attached two pics do just that—well done, Friend Sven!!

 

This is the first of two emails that I will forward your way this chilly Montana Monday—the balance of the attached photos tell the tale of chill that greets these climes this time of year—temperatures are set to go into the minus category before the week’s end.   As shown in the next set to come your way, Montana has been blessed by an abundance of snow this winter.  In fact, this winter currently ranks as having the seventh highest snowfall in recorded Montana history but, as our Outfitter John “The Great But Propaneless” Gould of Double Up Outfitters reminded me on the phone just moments ago, “it is what happens in May that dictates what will happen to our June and July Extravaganza fishing.”  That being said, you need a winter snow pack to have a fun-off water source and I regard the current plethora of whiteness to be nothing short of money in the bank for E-11.  We shall see what we shall see, and, as we do each year, closely monitor what Mother Nature has in store for us this fishing year.

 

Warm winter wishe to each of you from the blessed scene of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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