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October 26, 2004
My Weekend, Pt II
if you've had a chance to browse the wedding pictures that i posted yesterday, you have a pretty good idea of what my weekend was like. but the pictures portray only a well dressed afternoon, where everything was sunny and clean and pretty. it doesn't tell the whole story. the steamy, smokey side.
have you ever been to an indian casino? it was my first time. they're like little slices of sin, plopped down in the middle of the rolling foothills of California. kind of like a satellite Vegas, only without the charm. but what they lack in other amenities they more then make up for in sleaze.
case in point #1: there are nine of us checking in on a friday afternoon. several in the party are CSU alum and the CSU/Wyoming game was going to be televised that evening. great! we'll all go watch the game in the bar! we ask for directions to the casinos sports bar but what we get pointed to instead was "a bar" that had several tv's behind it. there were no tables or chairs to sit in and watch, only stools in front of the video poker machines.
this clearly wasn't gonna work so we decide the next best plan would be to pick up some beer and watch the game in one of our rooms. off Brandon, Casey and i go to the local market for a case of Corona, several bottles of wine and munchies. as i'm carrying the case of beer through the parking garage of the casino, an employee on his break walks past me and whispers, dude, security isn't gonna let you bring that in!
since when can you not bring beer to your room? i'm an adult! i'm long past those college days where one needed to be sneaky about shit like this -- why couldn't i bring it in? we figured we better be cool about it just in case, so the three of us divided up the contraband beverages, wrapped them in our jackets or whatever, and proceeded to stroll casually into the hotel.
i went first, and at the elevator banks i noticed for the first time, the hotel security guard. i nodded and smiled, he nodded back. i kept walking. all of a sudden i hear, i'm sorry, you can't bring that in here... i turn slowly, but it's not me he's talking to -- it's Brandon and Casey behind me. i keep walking and board the elevator alone.
long story short, the guard didn't take anything away, he just made them take it back out of the building. back to the parking garage where i, duffel bag now in hand, loaded the rest up and proceeded to make another casual stroll past the same security guard. why he didn't choose to question me i'll never know. must be my winning smile...
case in point #2: 10:30am, saturday morning, we're leaving for the wedding. the wedding itself was at a beautiful country club down the road. we were only staying at the casino for the cheap rooms. anyway -- Erin, Casey, Michelle and myself walk to the parking garage to pick up our car. as we're getting in we notice that the car next to us is not unoccupied. at first i thought it might be a homeless person, or someone in the backseat of the Cadillac resting after a long morning of casino slots. that is until i noticed there were two people in there. and that one was sort of poised above the other, if you know what i'm saying... the guy being interrupted glared at us all the way out of our parking space.
yep, there was a casino working girl, working the parking garage on a sunny saturday morning. i don't think the sleaze factor gets lower then that.
overall though, i have to admit that the rooms were nice and the food at the restaurants was better then average. but if you didn't like to gamble -- and by that i mean, if you weren't prepared to sit in a smokey, noisy casino for six-plus hours straight, this place ain't for you. there really wasn't anything else to do but gamble. well, except for the parking garage.
Posted by P at October 26, 2004 05:58 AM
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Comments
I lived in Oceanside for three years, why couldn't this place have been there then. The place was probably crawling with Marines from Camp Pendleton wasn't it?
I've been to my share of Indian casinos up here in our neck of the woods, and it ain't fun. Too many people, not enough room.
Posted by: Mike at October 26, 2004 08:30 AM