Okie-Vegas PT DUH

So we headed out to the middle of bumfuck egypt post haste. Gary was intent on chatting it up in the car which is great, since it really helps pass the time. I got a buzz on the phone and my wife texts me a hello.

In secret wife speak it means ' call me now you shiftless sonofa beaaatch'

I called the wife and I was barely getting a signal. "Wait till the hill for better reception" Gary offers" I decline to wittily remark that there ain't no damn hills in Oklahoma.

The wife calls back and we chat for a bit. Just hearing her voice melts my heart a little bit. Then the phone gets passed to the kids and they can't talk fast enough.

DADDY DADDY DADDY!!!!....they went on and on about Silver Springs , the animals they saw and the POOL, cause you know the POOL is the best thing about vacation, never mind we have a bigger one in walking distance to the house.

So I talk to the kids a bit and feel a little bad for shutting out my car mates for a bit. I tell my wife that I'll be FURTHER out in the middle of nowhere soon and may not be reached. She presses for more info, but I was ready to get off the phone.
I tell her everything will be fine and I'll give her a call Saturday when I'm back in town.

It occurs to me shortly afterwards that she was concerned about me vanishing or getting hurt and really had no earthly idea exactly where I was going. Which is all she really wanted to know...just in case.

This brewed for a minute and I turned to Gary and asked half jokingly "So you haven't just pretended to like poker for the past few years so you could get a bunch of unsuspecting people out to the middle of nowhere and chop us up into little pieces?"

"No, that is not the case" said Gary to which I said "Would you tell me if you were?" He assured me everything was cool, and I believed him.

We finally get to the lake (which I never even saw) and G shows us the bar/diner/grocery store then parks in front of his trailer HOUSE.

The place is fantastic! A huge screened in porch, 4 bedrooms, kitchen 2 baths..this was no freaking trailer. It was the real redneck riviera!

Kat, George, Jordan and I saunter back over to the diner/grocery and order our (disgustingly cheap) food. The poor girl behind the counter said it was going to be about 30 minutes. So I made the initiative to stroll next door to check out the bar. We order our 2 dollar beer, I pay and Jordan overtips nearly the same amount as the beer...awesome. The bartender didn't know what to do with the cash, she thought we needed more quarters for the electronic dart board.

It took a few throws to get used to the plastic darts, but I showed Jordan he was simply a padwan.

We eventually made it back to the house abut an hour later and scarfed down some really great burgers...our fries were missing DOH. No biggie, there was plenty of food and I managed to snag a few curly fries from jordan to dip into my now useless chili.

We hung out for a bit longer, then decided it might be a good idea to get some poker in. We all bought in for $50 and slung some cards for an hour or two. Jordan was donating chips at a feverish pace and I gifted Gary some chips when i had a hammer/aces call on him. I guessed tails and lost...doh.

F-train, gracie, and maudie rolled in and we began chatting and drinking in earnest.






We got word that InstantTragedy was en-route and decided to get a SNG ready. Jordan tried to stack the deck so IT would suffer a horrendous beat, but somehow the cards got screwed and I ended up with big slick...

To be honest, the rest of the night is not so clear for me. I remember using the hammer (no a real hammer) at the table and drifting in and out of consciousness. I remember pushing nearly every hand, and that's about it.

I guess I'm just lucky the Lazy-Boy was close enough for me to collapse into.

I can not begin to describe how utterly miserable I felt the next morning. I wanted a shower, I wanted to puke, I wanted a blood transfusion, I wanted to lay in a cool corner in the fetal position and pray to any deity that would listen to somehow end my misery.

On the car ride home, I started my version of roving reporter and just stared asking random questions to make the time go by. Kat and gary picked it up quick and we had a great conversation/Q&A on the ride back to chez Cox.

I must say, even though I felt like wretched cold death, that was one of the best times my whole trip, just shooting the shit, talking and beginning to know my newly visible buddies.

We got back to Gary's and I attempted to eat some food. I felt so miserable that it didn't even occur to me to go to my hotel and take a shower and change. I just sat around and waited until I was told to go play cards..


Next up the Tourney and epilogue.