On Wednesday at 8 a.m. we have our movers coming to haul our earthly belongings to a storage unit that I rented about a week ago. It's a 10x10 foot unit that's only about 2 miles from our apartment. The rent is only $115 a month. Last year I had to get the same size unit at another storage place that was about six miles away and the rent, which started at $125 a month, quickly rose to $140. Not cool!
Anyway, we've spent the past two days packing and I did squeeze in a little blackjack action each day. Typically I take a few boxes and other things to the storage unit about 9 a.m., then roll to the Rampart Casino for two or three hours of bj. Yesterday I lost $50, but today I won $92, so that was good.
Tonight and tomorrow, Helen and I will be burning up comps at the Rampart for dinner. I have about $50 in comps from playing, plus another $25 I got as a birthday present, plus another $15 I got in a random drawing last week. So we have some free food coming!
Tomorrow afternoon I will take our cable box and modem over to the Cox Cable store, leaving us with no TV or internet for the evening. Wow, that will be interesting. We'll be at Rampart for dinner, so maybe we'll stay and watch some sports there until we get sleepy.
After the movers haul our stuff to storage, Helen and I will hit the road to home. Our route takes us south out of LV to Kingman, Arizona where we hop on I-40 and roll east through Flagstaff and on to Grants, New Mexico. We have a reserved room at a Super 8 motel there. Nothing fancy just a place to sleep, but the price was only $57. Then on Thursday we will log approximately 13-14 hours on the road, through the rest of New Mexico, across the panhandle of Texas, driving the length of Oklahoma and, hopefully, into Missouri if all goes well.
On Friday we will trek across Missouri, head north the length of Illinois, clip across the corner of Indiana and enter Michigan. If all goes well, hope to hit TC by 7 or 8 p.m. to let us sleep in our own bed on Friday night.
It's been quite a winter here in LV. We didn't see nearly the amount of shows and concerts that we did last year. And I didn't have nearly the good fortune that I usually do at the poker and blackjack tables. Frankly, finances were as tight as ever, so we had to curtail a lot of our gaming action. I had always funded our fun times by winning at poker and BJ, but that just didn't seem to happen this year.
Still we had some memorable times:
-- Annual visit to Red Rock Canyon, one of the breathtaking sites that tourists rarely see. It's always a fun place to visit and watch the knuckleheads climbing the cliffs. Not for me!
-- Playing poker with Dodgers star pitcher Orel Hershiser at the Red Rock Casino. A very nice guy at the table, a gracious winner and a cordial loser.
-- January visit from my longtime friend Terry. Great to see him and catch up. No huge wins at the tables, but still lots of laughs.
-- Two visits from Helen's brother Norman and his wife Lorraine. They stayed at Ballys both times and we had rooms there too. It was so much fun sharing Vegas with them. The ladies did some shopping while Norm and I hung at the sports book. As an LA Kings fan, he shared some tips on betting hockey and we had a great time. We've started a tradition that when they come, we all share a deep dish pizza and Caesar salad while watching a movie in their room. It's a perfect getaway from the zaniness that can be the Vegas Strip!
Now I'm already focusing on building a nest egg for next year.
And thus, our adventure ends!
