(Christine refused our offer...her loss!!! But that's another story that I will let her tell someday!!)
We headed up the road toward Central City and Blackhawk. Now, if you grew up in Colorado as I did, Central City and Blackhawk were nothing more that little gold mining ghost towns somewhere near Denver. There was no reason to go there...if you have seen one mining ghost town, you've seen more than enough. Boring. However, things changed after I left the great state of Colorado many years ago.
Central City and Blackhawk (in 2ooo had a combined population of about 600) were former gold mining camps in the front range of the Rocky Mountains. They were instrumental in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1859 and because of the rich veins of gold found there, the area became known as the 'richest square mile on earth' producing unheard of amounts of gold. Central City was the most populated city in the territory of Colorado at one time, but eventually lost out to Denver as the capital. Now they comprise a National Historic District...(yeah, yeah..whatever - get to the point) and in 1991 casino gambling was introduced. That's the point. We went gambling!
This was our second adventure to the casinos in Blackhawk and Central City - the first being nearly a year ago for my birthday. We discovered then that there was a tiny casino tucked away where the nickel slot machines seemed to have a higher than average payout. So that is where we (big spenders) headed with our rolls of nickels in hand. The Doc Holliday Casino. It wasn't more than five minutes into our gaming that my sister, Kathy sat staring at her nickel slot machine and, knowing even less about gambling that I do, she asked what the blinking lights meant! We're rich!!! Seven hundred and twenty nickels later...she was ready to play on!!!
Honestly, it couldn't have been more than a minute after that when my machine froze up...literally. Paul took notice and told me to hold on...wait...what?? Yes...my machine was showing EXACTLY the same pay line as Kathy's had just done. But there were no flashing lights, no bells, no whistles. Just a malfunctioning machine. We called for help and sure enough...yep! Seven hundred and twenty nickles later (which I politely asked for paper money as a payout) we were really rich!!!
Who says that lighning doesn't strike twice in the same spot?! Well, they were probably right. But after Paul walked away from a certain machine where he lost ALL of his nickels, I immediately walked up to it, plopped in my three nickels and WHAMMO! Bells, whistles and blinking lights!!! Hooray!!! This is a FUN game!
Paul eventually got in on the action, and we were all getting nickels like crazy!
Even Nurse Bob had a lucky streak going!
Woohoo!!
Kathy hit a couple more wins, I hit a couple small ones. Paul was at least staying even. Martin was not doing so great...but we gave him a few nickel loans just to keep him occupied.
We had a fantastic day - good food, good fun, good friends! I believe my grand winnings ended up somewhere around 2,600 (nickels!). Whenever I even thought about the quarter poker machines or (heaven forbid) the dollar slots...the earnings starting slipping quickly. We seriously considered staying over for beer and pancakes...but remembered Odie was stuck in the backyard!!
Martin was excited when our winnings paid for dinner!!
Happy trails!
No comments:
Post a Comment