The Truth is in the Mountains, the Sea, and the Sky

Day 10 - and my head is full of conflicts. Vegas doesn't care about what's fair. You can take it lying down or rise on your haunches, ready for a fight to win back what you think is yours.

Vegas doesn't care, any more than Mother Nature has mercy.

(Shingles doesn't care, either. Or COVID for that matter.)

Should we keep struggling, or just wait to go home?

No, the opportunity is here and now, and we are determined to find whatever joy there is in the day.

Joy starts with an Aloha coupon breakfast at the counter, and a cup of mud as hot as Pele herself.

There's that breakfast again!

The first quad I hit was on Shockwave. I've never had a $1000 Shockwave quad, and it would sure be welcome now. I had a shot at it, but didn't get the second needed quad in the next 10 hands. No mercy.

But the morning had started no better than the previous morning. I was on a four or five day losing streak and couldn't seem to turn it around.

What's that you say? A healthy outing in the rental SUV?

Great idea. I needed to gas up (and believe me, I would be standing, holding the gas nozzle, watching, with my tootsies a regulation 105" away) and I found an area that had everything I needed.

A Roberto's Tacos, a gas station.

An ATM.

Bobby G had warned me about the red salsa, but I thought a little wouldn't hurt and spilled way, way more than I wanted onto my meal, morphing it into Carne Ass Blasta.

That was post photo and good God it was spicy, that red stuff. The meal was still a winner though.

Refueled, I refueled, and then refueled. All without incident.

Back at the Cal, it was 'try to just get through the day without losing my shirt' mode.

I had a quad or two and Mrs. Flusher had a quad or two, including $300 pointies.

You'll notice there are no video keno wins the last few posts. I played a ton of it, ploughing through hundies, but there were no jackpots to be found since we left Wynn.

It wasn't for lack of trying. But keno of all forms had decided it hated me, compared to my May trip, where I won on 4 out of 5 live keno tickets.

How to know when video keno hates you.

But did it really hate me? Did it love me before? We gamblers look to see patterns. And because things are random, there are patterns that emerge - after the fact.

The next spin, the next game, they don't give a shit whether you think you are on a winning or losing streak.

For dinner, the Quad Queen had a bowl of Saimin full of noodles and prizes.

I had chop steak, which was crappy. It was barely warm. I ate it anyway like the loser I felt I was.

The rest of the night was awful. And I cut myself off at $500. And I vowed I wouldn't bother playing another dime, not in the morning, not at the airport. For me, this trip was done.

The only bright spot was that the Quad Queen, through it all, managed to break even on the day.

Quad Queen Day $0 Trip -$1250

Royal Flusher Day -$500 Trip -$2505

Combined -$3755

Some accounting spin can help here. We had two free nights at Mandalay Bay (such as they were) with no resort fee (I only just got one night of it back after fighting and fighting to get it). So that's worth say $350.

At Wynn, we're using the Wynn Slots app. We paid $200 each to get to VIP level 3, where we can book rooms. We got eight nights at Wynn out of it between the last two trips, and aim to get seven more. There are resort fees, but for a total cost of $1,150, we'll stay a total of 15 nights. That's $76 a night all in for Wynn.

That is a bargain for one of the best hotels in the world. Not really a comp, but we're probably saving $150 to $200 a night off the best offer rate I can get. Some of those nights around busy times, Friday and Saturday nights and the like, would have been sky high and we wouldn't have paid to stay at all.

Let's be generous and say I would pay $200 all in for nights at Wynn. That's a savings of $125 a night, or $500.

We were comped four nights at the Cal, no resort fee, with meals. We used about $200 worth of meals, going by the receipts. I don't get comp room offers anymore, just casino rate, so I'd be looking at probably $125 a night all in with resort fee included, just to be reasonable. 

So comps at the Cal were worth $700.

Total comps $350 plus $500 plus $700 minus a hundy for the host is $1450.

That's all I've got and that's the best I can do with it.

Incidentally, our long long long term average loss per day is $125 to $150 each so we're not far off that. Ten days, $300 a day.

Do I feel better?

Not really.

---

The next day, I was more than ready to leave.

I looked out the window at the mountains. To me, they were stunning.

The amazing scenery around Vegas is maybe the better part of the city. But what do you see? Sunshine? Inky shadows? Puffy clouds? Threatening, foreboding dark clouds?

It's all there, and you see what you want to see, from your perspective. That is the only truth that can be found. It's yours. What does it mean, and what are you going to make out of it? (Double rainbow? So intense!)

You can find your joy, today. That's what I see in the mountains, the sea and the sky.

This little Flusher Golden Post belongs to Carol and Denise.

If you enjoyed this trip report, if you laughed, if you cried, if you cringed - how about throwing Flushiepants a coffee or a Maker's Mark. I've had Jimmy Poon absolutely litter the site with donation buttons.

There are no more ads on Royal Flusher Vegas, costs for domain registration, gas-soaked shoe replacement, computer hardware ($400 Chromebook last year for travel!), and Maker's Mark legal fees are out of pocket. I thank you for your kind support... and will see you next time.