Horses Make Hay Into Horseshit

Day 3 and the weather forecast was not good - but what was the gambling forecast?

The Portable Kettle, for which I have yet to devise a suitable nickname, performed amazingly well, considering the adverse conditions and unskilled operator.

I put water into it, using the Water Entry Opening at the top, engaged the temperature selector touch-button the correct number of times to select 212F water, and the Portable Kettle deftly heated that water, just as it was programmed to do. Gosh, what a marvel.

The in-room coffee was a success, and so was room camping breakfast.

Looking out the window, I noticed an area next to the parking garage that looked kind of interesting. I quickly figured out that I was looking down at a Horse Garage and Exercising Gym. No doubt, this was where the steeds for the Tournament of Kings show live.

I also got to watch someone carting some stuff out of the Horse Garage and putting it into a sort of trailer. Yup, those horses are full of horseshit.

I feel bad for those poor horses. Not sure what kind of a life they have living in such a confined space. At least they get to run around once a day while Johnny Tourist pretends to be a Knight of the Sherwood Forest King or whatever and throws his Cornish game hen bones over his shoulder like Tyer Fruck. 

With the blogging out of the way, I put together a bit of a plan. My right shoe had suffered a blowout at the back - a little piece of rubber was missing, and the sharp edges had rubbed a blister onto my Achilles heel. (This happened, of course, the day of departure for Vegas.)

Band-aids were working, but my heel was still sore, and let's be honest, they were a band-aid solution.

There was a Skechers store in the outlet mall south of here, and that's where I headed. Scored a new pair of shoes for $60 and figured out what to do next.

I grabbed a double cheeseburger from a nearby McDick's for lunch and decided to go and give Rio some play. They've been sending me weekly offers since I stayed there, usually 4 nights but pay the resort fee. And sometimes there was $100 no-stay 'Frioplay' mentioned, although that seems to have gone away.

Rio has been improving their VP offerings so maybe another stay there is in the cards, as it were.

Another factor in their favor is that the parking is free. The Honda Cletus took me there in no time.

I wandered a bit aimlessly through the confusing Rio casino, managed to get new players cards, and stumbled across and old school Double Diamond Double Top Dollar slot.

I put $20 in and it disappeared with only a single $2 win (cherries). So, the only logical thing would be to put $100 in. Which I did.

And I lost that too, but had all kinds of frustrating fun doing it. So much so that I put a second $100 in, lost most of that, but then won most of it back and finally cashed out down around $110 or something.

I hammered that machine for a solid half hour, in search of something I've never experienced.

Back in the day, Double Diamond was arguably the most popular slot machine theme around. I'm talking in the 1990s. And all my gambling career, I've never won the top prize - three Double Diamond symbols. Never ever.

The prize isn't over the top either, it should be one of the easier top prizes to win. With one credit bet, the three symbols typically pay 800.

It's a bucket list item to experience this once in my life - I've never won the top possible prize on any slot machine, for that matter.

I've also never won a purple $500 chip on a table game.

Now that I think about it, there are lots of things I've never done. I'd better get on with it!

I found some machines that VPFree said had some of the best video poker games at the Rio, sat down, and promptly played something else - that addictive Double Super Slutty Times Pay.

I started off at dimes, but quickly migrated to quarters, looking for that big score.

Boy, did I come close, as you'll see.

In the end, I played for almost 3 hours straight without a break. I went in as much as $400. I see-sawed between being almost out of credits and having $300 worth. I was at least holding out for a quad with multiplier. Or better.

First quad! No multiplier.

Moved up to Quarters. No multiplier.

This hand could have changed everything. Three chances at a $4000 royal flush.

Denied. DASM!

Quad. No multiplier.

Quad. No multiplier.

Quad. No multiplier.

Kind of a nice result to get all three flushes.

FINALLY. Quad with multiplier. WOOT.

I cashed out with 1195 credits, just short of $300.

It was an intense three hours, and pretty tiring. I left Rio and headed back to the room to chill (promptly forgetting the new Skechers in the Cletus, thus negating any benefit this day from my purchase).

I'd been wondering how they get the horses from the Horse Garage to the Tournament of Kings arena.

Well, I can tell you, I now know.

They walk. That's how.

I chilled in the room for quite a while, had a cocktail, and talked to my sister Divana for a while.

My plan was to have buffet for dinner - I still have not used any of my $100 resort credit.

This brings up an ongoing pet peeve about the enshittification of Vegas in general, and Luxor / Excalibur specifically.

There's almost nowhere to eat.

The buffet was closed. It's now open from 7:00 am till 2:00 pm only. Ditto the Pyramid Cafe. Excalibur used to have a wonderful (and huge) coffee shop where you could always get a great meal. Long gone.

I have no interest in Dick's Last Resort, or Bucca di Bopper or whatever the fuck and their $57 ravioli.

The food court has some edible things, but you can't charge any of them to the room.

So, I walked all the way to Hussong's Cantina, between Luxor and Mandalay Bay.

Closed for a private function.

And that's how I ended up at Johnny Rocket's in the Luxor food court. Fortunately the burger was good.

I like the video Keno machines at Luxor, so that looked like the evening gambling plan, with a quick bash at BUFFFFFALO!!!!!!!

I actually won $40 at BUFFFFFALO!!!!!!! and kept the profit.

And this is where the trip thus far went off the rails. There are no more photos.

I played about $400 through video Keno at Luxor and hit nothing. It was just dismal. At one point I had 11 cards set up with 5 numbers, three nickels each (plus a 6 and a 7) so around $2 a throw.

I never, ever hit a 5 out of 5.

With the dregs of my day's (too large) budget, I played some dollar triple play Bonus Poker at Excalibur and of course, ended up completely tapped out.

Shit.

Horseshit, actually.

So that puts me down $300 on the trip. I hope I can turn it around tomorrow!