On Saturday morning, after my running club meeting (sneak preview: I loved it!) we hopped in the car (ok, I showered first) and drove 3 1/2 hours north to pick up our boys, and then drove another 4 hours east. Destination? Shreveport, Louisiana - home of casinos. Our youngest son, Max, turned 21 last weekend, and Jeff has been itching to take the boys gambling. Since Las Vegas was not only a little (read: a lot) out of our budget, but also too far away considering that the boys have school on Monday, Shreveport was our destination.
First things first - our traditional stop at the Starbucks in Waco. I fueled up with a grande black coffee and a black cherry parfait, which was the perfect lunch, at only 310 calories. Yum.
Now, whenever I go on a road trip, I think of food...this goes back to the days when Jeff and I traveled from our home in southern California to visit my parents in northern California...food was a huge distraction on that seven hour drive...mostly strawberry milkshakes from Jack in the Box and candy bought at the gas stations. As I knew I would get into that mindset, I preempted my potential horrible choices with some not-so-awful-yet-still-indulgent-snacks like a bag of pretzel sticks, a jar of dry-roasted peanuts, some beef jerky, um...red Twizzlers, some raspberry gummy candy - oh, and some Mentos. I shared, of course...it was fun and bad and good - and as I never do things like this anymore, I really didn't feel too guilty about it.
We drove and drove and drove...man, no matter which direction you go, it just takes a long time to get out of Texas! Finally we made it to Louisiana - the bilingual state!
We quickly checked into our hotel room (free, thanks to Jeff's frequent traveler status at La Quinta) and hit the Horseshoe casino. It was interesting - they ID you as you enter the casino. Fine - I got in line. Then the bouncer-guy waved me through...sigh. Guess I don't look as young as I feel, lol!
We tried the nickel slots first, where I quickly won my first jackpot!
Then Max discovered that they will bring you drinks FOR FREE - he ordered a beer.
As we didn't really bring very much money to blow, we were pretty conservative - just had fun mostly with the nickel and quarter slots, although Sam tried his luck at the dollar slots and won a $40 jackpot!
After a while, we left the casino in hunt for a late dinner - it was dark, we didn't know our way around and ended up at Posados in Bossier City, which advertised itself with a huge neon sign that said "Fine Mexican Food." It was not. I hate putting sub-par food into my mouth, but it was late and we were hungry. Oh well.
Back to the casinos for a couple more hours, where I have to note that blergh, being around all of that second-hand smoke was gross.
Max and Jeff went off to play some video blackjack, while Sam and I stayed with the slot machines. We were getting pretty tired, and I had seven dollars left of my gambling money, so I decided to play it on the dollar slots - and I chose the Tabasco machine, thinking of my friend Biz. I played my first pull - won $5. Then played again and again...lost, lost, lost. Really, I was just playing that money down to zero so we could go find Max and Jeff and go back to the hotel. I was back down to $7 when that pull hit something and the numbers started adding up...and kept adding. It got to $100 and Sam and I kept saying holy sh*t, holy sh*t...and still, it kept adding!!! Sam texted "OMG OMG OMG to Jeff and Max and they came running...you are not going to believe what I won:
I still can't figure out how that combination added up to $500, but you KNOW I'm not complaining!!!
The funny thing is that all night long, every time someone would win big, I kept saying "You're going to buy me a netbook with those winnings, right?" - well guess what? I am finally going to get myself a netbook!!! Wow. I have never, ever, ever won anything remotely like that...what a thrilling end to the evening!
The next morning, we hit up the Starbucks in Bossier City for breakfast before hitting the road.
One of the best parts of this trip was being able to spend so much time with the boys. I hadn't seen them since May, and recently realized that they started back to school on Thursday with absolutely no help from me. No buying of school supplies or clothes, no
*I did not know this at the time, but apparently it is a no-no to take pictures in the casino. Obviously I never got caught...