ding, ding, ding...

that's what i heard this weekend. i live120 minutes away (give or take) from wendover, nevada. if you don't know what's the big deal about wendover, it's the poor man's version of vegas. it's a utahan's quick drive to casinos and gambling. and my boyfriend LOVES to go there. he calls it going to "the city". we decided to go out there this weekend for a quick overnighter. we went with my parents. most people would think of a hundred things they'd rather do than go get their gambling fix on an overnighter with their parents. i'm lucky. i don't mind hanging out with them. so we got up at 830 on a saturday morning (when i usually sleep in until 11!) to go out to wendover. it was great.

we got there about 11am and of course check in isn't until about 3pm. so we stopped at the cheesiest, most divey casino in wendover (the red garter!) because apparently they have really good breakfast that is like $3. we go eat and decide to head to the more classy, although not high class by any means, hotel/casino we are staying at. on the way out the door, kerry decides to drop a couple of dollars in the megabucks dollar slot. wouldn't you know, he who never plays slots, gets a $240 jackpot. what a lucky duck. of course we were all kind of playing scattered about and while he was winning his jackpot, my cute mom was winning one of her own. she scored $130 on a quarter slot. i dropped the usual $20 in about 10 minutes and had nothing to show for it.

we made our way to the nugget and played a little more here and there. by the time we checked in, went our seperate ways--me to the slots, my parents to the blackjack tables and kerry to the poker room-and met up for dinner later, i had lost about $60. all i had to spend was $100, so i knew my night was going to be an early one and i could get my book started...eclipse-the third in that vampire series that is all the rage. well anyway, after dinner, kerry headed back to the poker room and i went to play blackjack with my parents. i didn't even do too bad, considering. i played off of $20 for about an hour and a half. it was fun. but i was out of money, so i headed up to the room with my mom. she went to her room to make some cards and i stayed to keep her company while watching the red sox sweep another game from under the rockies. GO SOX!!

anyway, the game ended, kerry got beat out his tournament on the last hand (which, incidentally, he folded an ace/six then was horrified as he watched the flop show an ace and two sixes) and came up to the room. we were tired so we headed to our room to go to bed. but it was only 1130pm and we were in wendover, for pete's sake, so we headed back down to do some more gambling. i had $20 left to play, so we found a few slot machines and played for a minute. the next thing i know i had hit a $300 jackpot on the quarter machine!! woo hoo!!! 3 out of 4 of us had hit a pretty decent score!! i figured i shouldn't press it and we headed back to bed after playing another 20 minutes or so.

this afternoon right as we were about to head home, my dad decides to drop his last 2 bucks in a slot. wouldn't you know it, he hit a $200 pot!! unbelievable!! usually when i go out to wendover, i come home about $200 in the hole. but this time, all of us heard the lovely sounds of the ding, ding, ding of the slots!!

we'll be going back in a few months. i think my parents are good luck!