December Vacation - Day 3

Although it was foggy overnight, it was clear and sunny when we checked out this morning in Norman. We got the car loaded with all the luggage, electronics and the dog, and we drove about 200 feet to the Waffle House next door. Being that it was Monday around 10:30am, we were the only ones in the restaurant, which is unusual if you've ever been to a Waffle House. We both had breakfast, and it was actually quite good.

We then drove about 50 yards to the Walmart directly behind the hotel and got some supplies for the dog, namely rawhide chewies and some Beneful meal starters to mix into Desiree's kibble. She's being fussy about eating and needs some moist encouragement.

We then drove about a mile to the ATM at Chase Bank for me. It's going to be a long 4 days until payday.

After all the errands were done, we headed back south on I-35 a little over an hour to Highway 70 East towards Durant, Oklahoma, home of the Choctaw Casino. The casino is beautiful inside and very large. Again, being that it's a Monday in the early afternoon, you could throw a rock in any direction inside the casino and not hit anyone, but you would hit a slot machine. There's a bunch of them in this place. By the way, I wouldn't throw any rocks in any casino. Security would not be amused.

We played slots for a few hours, and I tried blackjack as well. The table wiped me out of $40 in about five minutes. I stopped playing as I was once again heading down the road to the poor house, so I followed Lawrence around and watched him play for a while. We broke for dinner around 6pm, and we decided to try the Monday special in the cafe instead of the buffet. It was Steak and Shrimp for $9.99, whereas the buffet was about $13.50 with our players card discount. We were both a little disappointed in the dinner as the steaks were small, and the shrimp were a few small broiled morsels. Not what we expected at all. It tasted good, but it wasn't very filling, so we ordered a piece of coconut cream pie and shared that. Lawrence had iced tea and I had water. Add it all up and we spent about the same as we would have at the buffet with a large selection of everything. Live and learn.

We went back to playing for awhile and I finally found a neat slot machine I really liked called Frankenstein. Fun to play with lots of easy little bonuses. I was actually able to maintain a decent balance of money for a few hours. A nice change.

It was just after midnight when I made arrangements to stay at the casino lodge which offered a good non-weekend rate, and good thing because when I walked out to the car, it was 37 degrees and so foggy you couldn't see more then about 50 feet in front of you. I drove all around the casino property very slowly looking for the lodge, and it took about 20 minutes to find it, although it was right next door in a shared parking lot. That tells you just how foggy it was.

We're not sure what tomorrow brings. Should we drive four hours to Shreveport and do more gambling, or jump across the border into Texas (which we are very close to) and head for Tyler, where our friend Roy lives? I'd rather go to Tyler and give up on this very expensive outpouring of money, but I'll leave it up to Lawrence and what he wants to do.

Tomorrow is a new day filled with choices of destination. I just hope the fog lifts before we head anywhere.