So, My Husband and I went on a "weekend" excursion, since we both have our days off in the middle of the week. I really needed to get away from the apartment and the city for a little bit. We wound up about an hour away in a town called Primm. We were gone for less than 24 hours, but being away for a bit sure did help a lot. If I had my way and we had lots of money and could take as much time off work as we wanted to, we would still be there.
I need another week.
Though lots of interesting things happened on the trip, I shocked My Husband by revealing that I had not played Texas Hold 'Em with actual, real live cards. I have played poker with a lot of my friends, but never Texas Hold 'Em.
Though we were in a Casino/resort(ha!)/(mo)Hotel, we bought a deck of playing cards in the gift shop and sat in our room playing cards and watching CNN. He still owes me $20 bucks, but I'm sure that we can work something out ;)
After a while we decided to venture out for food, and went to the Casino, Buffalo Bill's, right across from us. It was like Silver Dollar City tried to cram itself into a small gaming hall. Most of the restaurants were closed, so we ate at a small sandwich shop. I was turned around in my seat, trying to take a picture of what looked like a Hillbilly in a mine cart, and this big headed bitch stared straight at me through the lens, and sat directly in my shot. I would have forgiven her, except she made a few comments about photographers needing to learn their place. Had I stood up, the restaurant would have blocked the shot, so I just started talking about the most obscene things I could to make her and her two devil children leave. I don't remember exactly what I said, but eventually it worked.
At that point, I didn't even want the picture from that angle anymore, so I walked around the wall and muttered (loudly, apparently) "Now that Mrs. Hoebag McWhoreson is out of the way, I can take the damn picture." I turned to My Husband and noticed an elderly woman at a slot machine behind him. The memory of her expression will bring me joy for years.
"Oh my god, there is someone behind you. Screw the picture, let's go."
We walked rather quickly to a group of slot machines near an ashtray and lit two cigarettes. Somewhere between me taking pictures of the Hillbilly figures and a security guard giving me a few rather odd looks, My Husband decided he wanted to try out the $1 slots. I handed him some cash, and we sat there for a bit.
Rather than saying we lost all of our money, I like to think that we made a charitable donation to the Nevada Public School District. They should really enjoy the gold-plated toilet seats that our generosity will provide.
We got back to our hotel and I remembered that we had two 12 packs of drinks in the back. I was kind of thirsty, so I thought that we could take them inside and dump them in the ice bucket since our lavish accommodations did not include a mini fridge, or mini bar. More on our penthouse suite later...
We opened the hatch and reached for the drinks. The boxes pulled away. I turned to My Husband "The drinks exploded. Have these been in the car since Tuesday?".
Rewind-- Tuesday I went grocery shopping. My Husband came home and I asked him to get the drinks out of the car. He didn't. They sat in the car in 114+ heat for well over 24 hours.--Fast Forward
He replied "No... why does it matter?" I then explained that heat will cause carbonated drinks to burst. He apologized. He pulled the cases out so that we could throw them away... the drinks fell out and erupted all over us, the car, and the parking garage.
After a moment of laughter, we cleaned up the drinks and set off to find a Car Wash nearby so that we could shampoo the mat and wash the sugar off. There was not a car wash at the closest gas station, so He asked if we should go across the street or down the interstate. Since we live in a city with a million exits, I told him to go down the interstate. I did not realize that this town has three casinos, 2 fast food restaurants, two gas stations, and a strip mall... and NOTHING else.
Silly me! We drove over an hour to the next town! This happened to be across the state line, and through some of the most insane construction zones I have ever seen in my life. At one point, both lanes AND the shoulder we closed, so we had to drive on the dirt and gravel that line the highways of the Mojave desert.
When we finally got to the next town, we found out that they didn't have a car wash either! We used the windshield cleaner from the gas station to remove most of the syrup and then decided that we would shampoo the mat some other time. We got back in the car and drove another hour back to our hotel.
With only two working elevators, we waited about 20 minutes to get back to our floor. Walking down the hallway, you would think that this had been the scene of a spree of violent crimes. The carpeting was ancient and covered in bleach stains from people either trying to clean up or cover up bodily fluids.
It was a little horrifying.
We got to our room and I was a little shocked to see that everything else looked pretty clean. I hadn't paid much attention to anything when we first got there because I was just so excited to get out of the house, and now I realized that there was no remote control for the tv, no fridge, only two pillows, one towel, and none of the fancy toiletries that I was accustomed to finding in a hotel.
The pool closed at 8pm, there was no gym, no internet access, and only a questionable vending machine on the ground level. But there was free adult entertainment. If the room had come with a remote control, we could have ordered regular movies, or checked out the viewing guide. Instead, My Husband stood at the tv and changed the channels manually... until we stumbled upon something that mystified and intrigued me. Free adult television. Not the 'late night cinemax' stuff either... I was shocked.
If we were the sort of people that would rack up a huge porn bill, the free stuff would have been well worth a night in this place.
Instead, we watched cartoon network until we fell asleep.
The next day, we got in the elevator so that we could go to the desk and check out. It didn't seem odd at first, but we were in one of the elevators that was not working the previous day.
When we got to the bottom, there was a repair man in one of the other shafts. "Oh good! It finally came down! I was just about to shut them all off, just in case that one fell!"
Now, there was no sign anywhere that said "Elevator to Certain Doom" or "Elevator Out of Order" or even "Use at Own Risk", so I was a little concerned that we could have fallen to our death, but I just laughed it off. Somehow, it just seemed fitting.
At this point, I might add that the grand total of our room charge was $25.75, and that it was the same price as all of the other hotel rooms in town.
Less than a full day in this town made me realize how much I love home, and I guess that was well worth it.
On the way home, we stopped at a music franchise store and purchased a "learn to play the guitar set" along with a few picks and some strings. My Husband and I both have guitars, but neither of us know how to play. Mine was given to me as a gift when I was senior in high school, several years ago, and My Husband received his when his Great Aunt died. It had been one of his relatives, and no one else wanted it.
When we got home, we put the DVD in, sat down, and had The Roommate act as our remote control. He would pause, fast forward, and rewind upon request, while reminding me that no one expected me to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan right away. Once it occurred to me that it takes everyone more than 5 minutes to master chords and fingerings, I felt a little bit better. Since I am still doing the very basic, it took me a little while to get the G7 chord. It really confused me that there would be a G and then another G, so I am counting that as my second skill.
To recap: I learned to play Texas Hold 'Em with actual cards, and I learned all about the G7 chord.
I'm sure there are several other skills from this trip that I could have chosen, but those are the most memorable.
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