I should be ashamed of myself, because after "letting it dry" (the Foam Putty), I did nothing until November 2024. However, on 17 November I started to think about what to do next.

I moved the track into its proper location and used glass-headed pins to hold it in place while I use foam putty to fill in gaps in the foam sections used to build the highlands.

While this was drying (I didn't wait another two years), I dug out my paint brushes and acrylic paints. I wanted to paint the ground surfaces above and below a sandy color. Some if the paints were still in usable condition, but I didn't have the colors that I wanted.

I went to the Hobby Lobby in El Dorado and bought some "Folk Art Matte" Cafe Latte and Beige Fonce. I got a brush set with brushes that better fit into the paint bottles. I also got some super glue that I thought I could use to hold the track down.

Over the next few days I did some painting. I used the Cafe Latte for the surface of the ground above and below in the layout and for the foam putty under the upper track. I used the Beige Fonce for the road that circled through the town, to the west end of the layout, and back.

When painting the road, I realized that the town was setting on a sheet of foam board above the ground level of the rest of the lower layout. So I used some foam putty (which was still good after a couple years) to create a slope to connect each end of the town's roadway to the lower ground level. I painted these with the acrylic paints after the foam had dried.

I decided to repaint the Old Mission. I used the Beige Fonce for the Mission's adobe and "Apple Barrel" Burnt Umber (still good after all these years) for the Mission's doors and the poles that stick out of the adobe.

I used "Apple Barrel" Country Grey to paint the stone entrance to the Mine.

The lid to the suitcase housing the layout has been gathering all sorts of stuff - much of which has nothing to do with this layout - since I last really worked on the layout. As I removed this irrelevant stuff I found a bunch of small items that I'd purchased for use on the layout - cacti, horses, cattle, people, and a covered waggon and a gallows. These last two needed to be painted, so that was the next thing that I did.