Since the Cubs were playing in Tucson yesterday, EH and I opted for visiting the annual Celebration Of Art Festival, held each year in Scottsdale. This is a worthwhile exhibit to view, if you're in the Phoenix area. The artists create their works of art in the tents housing the exhibit. Most of them are friendly and enjoy speaking with the visitors to the festival.
After meeting and visiting with some artist friends from previous years, we found that we
had about four hours to kill before it was time for our dinner reservation at Arrividerci Restaurant, at Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads, in Scottsdale.
This restaurant is one of our favorites. It is a small, Italian chef-owned boutique type establishment. Every diner is personally greeted by the owner, who also makes certain
that his guests are satisfied with their fare. The food is excellent. Made to order and prepared with loving care. If you're in the area, I highly recommend calling for a reservation.
EH suggested that we ride to Ft. McDowell Casino and spend a couple of hours playing
NSUD, in their non-smoking area. Of course I agreed to this plan, though I mentioned that
I only had about $200 with me. This was an unplanned casino stop, and my bankroll was stashed in a hotel safe deposit box. EH did a fast count of his cash and said that he had
approximately $250. After a fast mental calculation, I said that should last us a couple of hours, even under adverse circumstances, if we stuck to five coin, quarter NSUD play.
After riding for about 40 minutes, we arrived at the Fort, a large, unattractive stone and stucco edifice.
Entering the casino through the immense Bingo Hall, where they were calling numbers for the coverall ($50,000 in 45 numbers or less....HA!) we were interested to see that most of the players had some sort of gadget in front of them, rather than paper cards. I guess that Bingo has entered the electronic age. I have no idea how these gadgets work, but then I haven't played Bingo in about thirty years.
We walked through the main part of the casino, which was extremely crowded, on a Tuesday afternoon. The air was hazy and gray with smoke. We continued to the back of the casino which is non-smoking, and found two seats at the bank of six MG/MD uprights which contain five and ten coin, FP NSUD. The other VP games were 8/5JOB, 8/5DB 6/5AcesBP, plus various Keno games,
This bank is located on the wall at right angles to the N/S Restrooms. We were very lucky to score two machines. The other four machines were in use by video Keno players. Shortly after we sat down, a group of folks gathered to wait for a machine to play. Since these are the only boxes in the casino that offer NSUD, I wondered why they were so attractive to the video Keno players.
EH and I both "set" our machines to play five coins instead of the maximum ten coins, and
despite a WRF and two 5OAK, on my machine, I was soon down $60.00. EH, who plays much slower than I do, lost $40.00 during the same period of time. Both of our machines were as cold as ice. We each inserted another $20.00. Within ten minutes, the machine had inhaled the bill, and given nothing back. The deuces had fled. We both decided that we weren't having much fun, and relinquished our machines to two of the patient onlookers.
We walked through the rest of the N/S area, which contained a large poker room. Finding nothing better to play at any denom. than Illinois Deuces or 8/5JOB, we walked back to the
main part of the casino.
After inspecting pay tables on every bank that had an open machine, I found a bank of six M/G, M/D machines, that was without a single player. This bank offered single-line
9/6 JOB, and other short pay games, in only $1.00 and $2.00 denoms. I was reasonably sure that this bank had also had NSUD when we had visited last year. Now, the Deuces game was the Illinois Deuces.
EH and I sat down, brought up the 9/6JOB game, and inserted a twenty, proclaiming ahead of time, "Four hands and out!" EH played several hands, doubled his money and announced that he was cashing out. I had been watching him, in order to prolong our gaming experience, on our very short bankroll.
After he cashed out, I played three fast hands without even a refund. Then I was dealt the Q,J,10,9 of Hearts, and drew the 8H, to complete my lovely $250 SF. I played a few more hands, scoring a FL and a FH. When my credits dipped back down to $270, I cashed out for a $250 profit on that machine.
After reimbursing EH back for the $20 he had lost, I was satisfied with my modest profit. Considering our short bankroll, we hadn't done badly.
We did look at the remainder of VP at all denoms., in the rather small casino. I couldn't find a single machine that I would play. We used up the $5.00 in comps that we had earned, in the gift shop, on Corn-Nuts, and other crunchy snacks. Then we hit the highway, fighting 5:00PM sun in our face, almost all the way to our lovely Italian dinner.
We'll be here in lovely, sunny Arizona for another week. Then it's back to chilly Illinois.
~Babe~
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