Greetings, fellow E-19ers:
Now back in the Bay Area and (more or less!) rested from our collective June together in the wilds of western Montana, God’s very own backyard, I write to thank each of you for taking precious time out of your life to spend time with us in and along Rock Creek during Extravaganza 2019, our seventeenth foray into the marvelous natural beauty of that special part of this earth. Our perspective was coincidentally not unlike that of those brave first travelers to the moon now fifty years ago: Each of us in our own way had the chance to jettison from the orbit of our daily life and enter/reenter into the pristine flora and fauna that so wonderfully surrounds all that is to be found in Extravaganzaland—its beauty, its smells, its simplicity and the glorious naturalness of it all.
Almost daily now I am blessed to receive emails, poems, thank you notes (like the attached two wonderfully kind penned and drawn messages from our friends at the Montana Natural History Center), all of which sum up so nicely the special experience that we carved out for each other. I can attest first hand that the trees and surrounds of our Rock Creek home yet boast from the peals of laughter and hilarity that they were privileged to experience in each of our three Groups and how the nearly 2,000 natural Montana trout our nets were privileged to touch are yet wondering in amazement “just what was that I imbibed?” only to be photographed and safely released back into their natural habitat. What a wonderful circle of life.
And what an Extravagant show the year 2019 put on for us! Precipitation and Snow Water Content each boasted 100% of twenty year norms; the resultant water flows were as close to perfect as they had been for a decade; the weather even cooperated more so than it had in many of our recent years together; and the fishing….well, it was simply and productively ”lights out”!!
Best of the entire Extravaganza, however, was each of you who comprised this year’s 48 participants, many of whom were returning veterans and, pleasantly, an equal number of which were rookies to the experience of it all. Best of the best and descriptive of it all was Day One of Group Three when several of the wives caught their very first trout on their very first day of trout fishing, classic among which was Maine resident Paige “My Boat” Mangum who, during her first boat report, turned to long time fishing hubby and soon-to-be “Boatless Bill” and said, “After 39 years of watching you fish, I NOW know what this is all about and you are going to sell that boat [because I am now fishing with you]!” (and hence the evolution of Bill’s Montana “Boatless” nickname!).
Did we have fun, or what, gang?!?
And that is what the Extravaganza is all about—witnessing and enjoying the beauty of western Montana; enjoying the company of both old and new-found friends around a comfortable outside bar and dinner table; and “giving back”, as we all so elegantly did again this year, such that the environment we entered was not only properly and respectfully enjoyed but also left better upon our departure than was the (pristine) condition in which we found it.
Bravo, bravo, bravo!!!
So join me in raising one last glass (of Coldsmoke on tap?!?) to toast all that Extravaganza 2019 was and all that we each collectively and individually did to make it so, knowing that, in this its final hour, plans for next year’s Extravaganza are already well under way with our now perfect 2020 vision!!
Best to all in the now concluding scene of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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