Lunch with Bruce & Sandi

Sunday morning I made a quick trip to the Suncoast to check out the basketball point spreads and play a little blackjack. The BJ started off pretty well and I was up $30-$40 when I ran into one of the worst stretches of cards I've ever experienced.

For background, it was a $5 minimum bet game of two-deck pitch where the dealer tosses the cards to the player who holds them in one hand only. If you want another card, you scrape the table with your two cards. If you stay, you slide your cards under your bet.

With only two decks, it doesn't take too many hands before the dealer has to shuffle. At this time, I was alone at the table. During one two-deck session, the dealer had FIVE blackjacks!! Consider that there are only 8 aces in the two decks - possibly even fewer since there is a cut card that eliminates about 1/4 of the decks. So the dealer got 5 aces and paired EACH of them with a face card! Naturally, I got no blackjacks during this terrible run. And my profit disappeared... I ended up losing $27 for the trip.

I headed home about noon and after a bit, Helen and I drove down to the Strip where we met my brother Bruce and his wife Sandi, who are on a long motor-home tour of the Southwest. They drove up from Phoenix on Friday and are staying in LV until Wednesday. We met them at Planet Hollywood and had lunch at the Cheeseburger restaurant in the PH Miracle Mile shopping mall. Helen and I had chicken Caesar wraps, Sandi had a cheeseburger wrap and Bruce had an order of three fish tacos. It was great to catch up with them. After they leave LV they're driving to the Grand Canyon, then heading back toward Michigan. They need to be back there by March 5, according to Bruce, because they have plans.

Already this morning, I have made a tasty quinoa salad from a recipe given to me by Lois Edson. It's packed with protein and a nice light meal in itself or as a side dish. Helen is doing a load of laundry. It's not easy with her healing ankle, but she refuses to just sit around. I have a few errands to take care of this morning - trip to the bank, stop by the apartment office, etc. But may have time to visit the Suncoast later.

Tomorrow we're supposed to have lunch with Bruce and Sandi. We're thinking of taking them to the Red Rock Nature Area for a nice trip, then having lunch at the nearby Red Rock Casino. I don't think they've been to either of those spots, so it would give them a break from The Strip. And so, our LV adventure continues...