The Clan Gathers

Now begins the continuation of our western tour which was interrupted two weeks ago. On Thursday, August 11, Gene and Sheryl head up from Colorado Springs where they have been tourists for a couple of days and scoop up Steve Jacobson from DIA on the way.
It was just the prettiest of days and all of us are so appreciative of the cool dry air. The Rockies were clearer that morning than before or since. The remainder of the day was taken up with gathering data from the plane, transmitting it, getting rooms, turning in one rental car and securing another. We had a nice dinner at a place within walking distance of the hotel and a nice margarita. (Somehow the theme of this group has become to compare margaritas from one state to another.)
Friday the three of us went out to the plane, which had been sitting at the Broomfield terminal for two weeks. We set up a table in shade of the wing and started giving tours. The opening had not really been advertised for that day, but there is a popular lunch spot in the terminal so we had a modest but interested number of people come by. Jane and David Gorrell joined us in early afternoon coming in from Park City, UT. They had not been expected but knew we would welcome a few more folks since there were only three of us. Larry Jamison, our local guy, had house guests and was forced to be absent. There was a cool breeze blowing, and being sheltered from the sun, it was a perfect temperature.
We were to do a fly by at the Longmont airport at 7 PM in honor of Jack Grenier who lives there and who flew this very plane for American in the 1940's. He is now 90 years old and still flying. Pretty impressive. That is Jack in the photo on the right with David Gorrell. There had been some publicity for today and we ended up with 10 passengers. Ten is not so many for most of our flights, but at this altitude, the plane was not happy with that many plus five crew. It was fun to see the people out by the runway with cameras and waving when we did two low passes. We arrived back at Broomfield just in time to silhouette ourselves in front of a magnificent sunset over the mountains.
By the time we deplaned and closed things out, it was 9PM when we arrived at a restaurant to eat. Some of us had had a late lunch of sorts, but Gene had not eaten since breakfast, so devoted is he to his duty. After a pleasant meal and a lot of chatter we retired and fell into bed exhausted.