Introduction
I really really needed a day off from work. I hadn't really taken any time off this year and I just wanted a day to screw around and have some fun.
I started looking around for something to do and decided to head to West Wendover Nevada for a quick gambling run. They had emailed me an offer with a free hotel room and free entry into a slot tournament that started on Sunday. I figured why not and took them up on their offer.
Sunday
Shari and I left for Nevada just after 3pm. They weren't running any promotions on Sunday so we weren't in any hurry to get there, other than to register for the tournament.
We got in just in time to register and we had a 7:20pm appointment at the Peppermill to play. Wew wound up gambling a bit before deciding to eat. I wound up hitting a hot Action Bank game and wound up getting back-to-back jackpots. They weren't much, but still the jackpot pick'em screen doesn't come up too often.
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| Fu Dao Le was pretty good to me |
I was up about $60 before dinner and we wound up using a 2-for-1 buffet pass. I ate pretty well, but didn't kill myself. By the time we finished eating, it was time to make the .5 mile drive to the Peppermill (we were at the Montego Bay Casino).
My luck went south at the Peppermill. I couldn't win anything while killing time for the slot tournament to begin (that's how they get you). Around 7:20 the tournament started. I've done these before and basically you press a button as fast as you can on a slot machine. It tallies up the points you earn and the more spins you can complete in 10 minutes, the better your chances of getting more points.
I wound up netting just over 90K points. I looked around me and people were in the 120 - 130K range. Obviously, I didn't do well at all.
We wound up gambling some more at the Peppermill, but my luck kept going south. My $60 some-odd dollar profit was soon a $20 loss or so. Ugh.
Around 10pm, we took off back to Montego Bay and decided to call it a night. Again, they weren't running any specials and on Monday they were starting the 2x comp multiplier, so at least we'd be getting a few extra points.
I slept horribly. The room was pretty hot (Shari doesn't like a cold room) and some morons were going back and forth in the hallway talking. I hate that.
Monday
I got up around 7:30 and almost turned back over and went back to sleep. However, I definitely wanted to get in some sort of a run. Normally I run into the canyons, but being I am running a marathon on Saturday, I didn't want to risk twisting an ankle or something like that.
I opted to run west along West Wendover, Blvd and made a 500 foot ascent towards the western edge of town. I had hoped to get some awesome shots of the town and salt flats from this vista, but the sun was intense and I knew it wouldn't be very photogenic.
I wound up running about 7 miles and got to poke around some of the moon rock cliffs:
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| Heading west |
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| Stopping by to see Wendover Will |
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| This is the hill / road I climbed and just beyond that gray hill, I took the above photos |
I managed to dodge a windy and somewhat blustery storm, which was rolling into town just as I got back to the Montego Bay:
I wound up relaxing a bit in the sauna before packing up and getting ready to leave. I had to be at the Peppermill for round 2 of the slot tournament.
I wound up throwing away some more money at both Montego Bay and Peppermill. I just wasn't having any luck. Neither was Shari. However, I had turned in all my spare change that I've been collecting for the past several months and got $18.
I let Shari drive for the slot tournament and she did a lot better than me. She got about 180K points. Most people did better, so I have to wonder if the machines on one side of the room are rigged to pay more. Either way, it was another 10 minutes of pounding on the machine.
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| What a slot tournament looks like |
We high tailed it back to Montego Bay and ate breakfast there. I was starving but I didn't eat a whole. I sucked down a ton of Cokes though. I was dying of thirst.
We headed back over to the Peppermill to find out how we had placed. I had hoped that Shari's massive point total would at least put us in the top 64, which would lead to a further round of playoffs and potentially a bigger pay out. Alas, I came in like 95th place, which got me $25 of free play. Oh well, better than nothing.
Shari wound up taking the last of hey money and played some Quick Hits. She wound up doing extremely well and turned her $20 into at one point $300. She cashed out with $250. She wound up betting max ($1.50 a spin) and hit a couple of highly profitable bonus rounds:
Not to be outdone, I went over to a Fu Dao Le and stuck my last $100 in it. I was going to go big or go home. I was betting all over the place and before I had started playing I joked with Shari that I might win the minor jackpot bonus, which was at $198 or so (it starts at $88).
I wound up hitting the pick'em bonus at 88 cents (a rarity) and wound up picking the minor bonus!
After cashing out, I went over to another Fu Dao Le and wound up getting another pick'em bonus -- which doesn't happen very often. The minor jackpot for that was nearly $200, but I only got the mini, which was still a decent $24 or so.
I wound up goofing around some more in the casino and it seems like my streak was over. We thought we'd stick around until they gave us our $25 in free play, but they kept pushing it back in terms of an estimate of when they'd have it ready. So we hit the road. It'll be there next time we go.
The ride back was pretty uneventful other than some really strong winds. I did have a chunk of debris from the road hit my car, which gave me a scare, but I don't seem to have suffered any ill effects from it.
Shari came home the big winner, probably netting close to $150 or so. I wound up losing about $60-$80 or so. I am glad I managed to cut my losses right before we left.
Either way it was a fun trip and as usual, I am looking forward to going back again.
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