October
19, 2001The Scioto Valley Chapter of the Ninety Nines had planned last year to fly out to Raton, New Mexico, to paint one of their special Compass Roses on the airport there. However, the planned new asphalt overlay for their taxiway upgrade was late, and the painting project got postponed to this year.
Connie and Ray filled up their Cessna 340 with Marilynn Miller, Marjorie Anderson, and Janie and Woody McIntire, and headed westward on the morning of October 18. The weather was superb, and we made fuel stops at Spirit of Saint Louis and Wichita Mid-Continent airports. From Wichita, we phoned ahead to Jo-Ann and Jim Prater, who were waiting for us at the Casa, and they drove over to Raton to pick us up in the late afternoon.
When we arrived at Raton, Keith and Fern Mangelsdorf, proprietors of Pegasus Aviation, told us that that the City Engineer of Raton had not yet surveyed the compass points for the rose, but Keith promised to see that the job would get done the next day (Friday). Keith also said he had 15 gallons of traffic paint and three quarts of blue tint.
When we walked out to the taxiway intersection where the project was to be located, we realized that the asphalt pavement had never been sealed, and it was extremely porous, meaning we would be needing much more paint than normal. Keith said he understood there was more paint available to pick up as we needed it, so we headed down the road to the Colfax Tavern ("Cold Beer" as it's known to everybody) for glass or two of (you guessed it) cold beer.
Thursday evening at the Casa, Myra Jamison and her daughter Carolyn drove in from Colorado Springs to join us, as planned.
October
19, 2001
Connie, Myra Jamison's daughter Carolyn, Myra, Jo-Ann and Jim Prater, Woody and Janie McIntire, Marjorie Anderson, and Marilynn Miller, all having breakfast at the Casa on Friday morning.
October
19, 2001
Here's a view from the other end of the breakfast table, showing Jim, Woody, Janie, Marjorie, Marilynn, Connie, Carolyn, Myra, and the top of Jo-Ann's head.
October
19, 2001
A morning view of the Casa del Gavilan. It's actually an adobe structure, but it's always been painted this brilliant white color, and it's a striking landmark in the area. The water running down the driveway in the right side of the picture is from a new leak in some old plumbing along the north edge of the house. That's on the schedule to be dug up and repaired in coming days. Water is always precious in this arid country, and this has been the fourth year of a prolonged drought in the area, which makes it especially important to stop the leaks.
October
19, 2001
Here's an opposing view of the front entrance, with the Tooth of Time looming above in the distance. The regular brown color of adobe buildings just wouldn't seem right in this setting.
Shortly after breakfast, as we were preparing to drive to Raton, Bev and Walt Giffin from Pueblo circled the Casa several times in their RV-4 and caught our attention. Ray ran in to pick up his hand-held transceiver, and Woody was able to tell Walt on the Unicom frequency that we would pick them up at the airport. Amusingly, Walt wasn't expecting to hear a radio call from anyone at the Casa, and assumed that the message was coming from someone at the Raton airport.
Friday morning we got to the Raton airport a little before noon, just as the engineer finished marking the compass points, so we missed getting pictures of that by only a few minutes. We thanked him for responding this morning, allowing us to begin our chalk-line layout with no delay.
We all agreed that the porous asphalt surface would need a lot more paint than usual, so Keith said he would be prepared to get more in the morning.
October
19, 2001
Myra, Woody, Marjorie, Connie, Jo-Ann, and Bev all watching the initial stages of the layout for the compass rose.
October
19, 2001
Janie monitors the center pivot, while Myra and Carolyn mark the ten-foot-radius circle of the compass rose. Marilynn and Bev seem to be discussing something about the outer diameter.
October
19, 2001
Walt, Ray, and Woody, just completing the outer, 35-foot-radius circle in the compass-rose layout.
October
19, 2001
Connie, along with Bev and Walt Giffin, making sure Ray and Marjorie get that chalk line placed right.
October
19, 2001
Woody McIntire, snaps one of the many chalk lines in the grid-layout of the interlocking-nines logo in the center part of the compass rose.
October
19, 2001
Myra Jamison snapping one of the yellow chalk lines in the compass-point pennants of the layout. Marjorie and Connie in the distance seem to be working out some details of the layout.
After completing the layout of the compass rose on Friday afternoon, we all drove back to the Casa for evening of relaxed conversation.
October
19, 2001
Myra Jamison, Isabel Sandoval (Innkeeper of the Casa), Myra's daughter Carolyn, Jo-Ann Prater, Marilynn Miller, Abby Rice, Jane and Woody McIntire, and Carole Countiss at one end of the dining room in the Casa.
October
19, 2001
Myra, Abby (partially obscuring Jo-Ann), Richard Carlson, Marjorie, Walt Giffin, and Carolyn in the entryway of the dining room.
October
19, 2001
Walt and Bev Giffin, chatting with Marilynn Miller and Richard Carlson, with one of several Remington sculptures displayed prominently in the foreground. Carolyn, Connie, Myra, and Woody and Jane are in the dining room.
October
19, 2001
Isabel and the Remington horses, with Jim Prater and Marilynn Miller relaxing on couches in the front room of the Casa.
October
19, 2001
Marjorie, Isabel, Jim, Carole, Richard, Jo-Ann, and Bev in the corner of the front room. That's probably Abby's right arm in the edge of the picture beside Marjorie.
October
20, 2001
By 9:30 Saturday morning, we were already showing good progress in the painting of the compass rose, but the paint was soaking into the surface even worse than we feared. Keith headed out to locate more traffic paint.
October
20, 2001
Richard Carlson seemed to get stuck with the tedious job of paint mixing, while Marjorie, with her ultra-convenient portable stool, became the "point specialist" for the tips of the pennants.
October
20, 2001
Richard, Connie, Jo-Ann, Marjorie, Myra, Jim, Woody, Carolyn, and Walt, all working in different areas of the rose simultaneously. We are pleased at the progress we are making, but worried about how rapidly the paint is disappearing.
October
20, 2001
Abby, the professional artist that she is, volunteered to stencil the Scioto Valley chapter name, and the 2001 date in the lower portion of the center circle. This was a significant challenge on such a rough surface, but Abby just took it in stride.
October
20, 2001
Keith found three more five-gallon buckets of latex-based white traffic paint in town, and the only additional available was naphtha-based, which we didn't want to try to use along with the water-based paint we'd already been using. So we just agreed we would stretch our supplies as far as possible by thinning with water.
October
20, 2001
Woody and Jim covered over a few spills and dribbles with black spray paint.
October
20, 2001
As the finishing touches went on, we all agreed that the rose could benefit from one more coat to help fill in the pores, but it didn't actually require one for now. Keith said they could make it an airport project to touch up the paint in a year or two as it weathered.
October
20, 2001
Here's a tribute to Abby's patience with the artist's brushes and the stenciling job she did on the rough surface.
October
20, 2001
Here are several views of the finished compass rose, as seen from the top of a stepladder.
October
20, 2001
While we were admiring our work from the ground, Keith was making flybys above in his super cub, taking passengers for aerial photos of the new compass rose.
October
20, 2001
Bev, Carolyn, Marjorie, Connie, and Myra on one side, with Janie, Marilynn, Carole, Jo-Ann, and Abby on the other.
October
20, 2001
Another shot of the same view, just for good measure.
October
20, 2001
Somebody had this great idea of posing all ten of the participating Ninety Nines on points of the compass rose for this clever photo.
October
20, 2001
And then some of the 49-1/2s tried to get into the act, too.
October
20, 2001
Woody, Richard, Jim, Ray, and Walt, all pretending that the Ninety Nines couldn't have done it without them. We hope Keith got an aerial shot of us posing on his new compass rose, too.