Last weekend (Oct. 8) five of us "Hens" took a trip to the Downstream Casino Resort which is barely in Oklahoma (Indian Land) near Joplin, Missouri. Gina was entered in a poker tournament on Saturday, so we loaded up and left Fort Smith after Pat got off work on Friday...drove the 150 miles or so and arrived about 8:00. We had planned to eat at the steakhouse, but without reservations we couldn't get a table until 9:15. Oh, well, we'd just gamble while we waited--good thing I'd had a package of peanut butter crackers before we got to the hotel or I'd never have made it that late before eating!
We had a nice dinner, then went back to the casino. We decided to pool $20 each and put $100 in a $5 machine, take turns pressing the button and share whatever we won. I was the second one to play so I hit the button, the screen turned red and started re-spinning! When it finally stopped, a crowd had gathered as a result of our screaming and the message on the machine read "$1600.00 Please wait for attendant." WOW! I'd never won enough in a casino to have to give them my info for a 1099, but since I'd pushed the button, it was MY winnings--even though I only got to keep $300 of it! Anyway, we divided the money and used the extra $100 to play awhile longer as a group then went our separate ways, either to bed or to play more.
Saturday morning I got up and took my walk around the perimeter of the parking lot a couple of times. I'd been walking at a little park near the motorhome every day for over two weeks and I wasn't going to let this trip get me off-track. The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful--no more big jackpots and Gina was out of the tournament early Saturday evening so we ended up coming home Sunday afternoon.
Granddaughter Amber had school break October 14-17, so she and Lisa were going to fly to San Juan for three nights and I decided to go along. We had to fly out of the NW Arkansas airport at 6 a.m. and it's a 2-hour drive, so we decided to get a hotel room at the airport Wednesday night in order to get a bit more sleep and not have to leave home at 3 in the morning.
Amber had to work until 9 that night, though, and hadn't finished packing for the trip so it ended up being after 10 before we got on the road--the first time. We'd driven over 30 minutes when it dawned on me that I'd forgotten to pack my passport! Since Puerto Rico IS a U.S. territory we weren't sure if I'd have to have it or not so we called the airline reservations number and they said yes, a passport is required. Darn! To save us driving time, I called Roger, told him where to find my passport and that we'd meet him halfway. He didn't express how frustrated he must have been at having to crawl out of bed and get in the car at almost midnight to bring me something I should have remembered to pack.
We finally arrived at the hotel and got to bed at about 2 a.m.--with a whole THREE HOURS to sleep! Made it to the airport and got to Atlanta on the first flight out. There were two morning flights and one in the evening--but when you fly standby, you never know when you'll get on one. In this case, it had looked like we'd have no problem, but by the time we got to Atlanta there were more people wanting to go to San Juan than there were empty seats--and being a mere parent, I was last on the list. Lisa and Amber refused to go on without me, so we had to find a Plan B. We ended up settling on Jacksonville, Florida--the only place with a beach that we could find empty plane seats to AND that had an Embassy Suites hotel that we could transfer our non-refundable deposit to!
Arrived in Jacksonville early afternoon, rented a car and headed to the hotel. Since we had a GPS Lisa didn't get a map with the car--big mistake! We had picked up several Visitor's Guides to the area, but NONE of them seemed to have an overall map of the area that would show us where the various places (like the beaches and some nearby towns) were located in relation to our hotel. All we knew was that there were some beaches nearby and I thought we should find someplace to ride Segways.
We got checked into the hotel early afternoon, figured out that we wanted to go to the JAX Beaches and headed back out to see if the GPS could take us there. Found the beach, found the fishing pier, walked around awhile then found a place to eat--it was the Beachside Restaurant but wasn't really on the beach. Good food, though!
When we got up Friday morning, we decided to head for St. Augustine beach where we'd seen an ad for a place that offered Segway beach tours. I'd been through St. Augustine before and knew it was a neat place but didn't remember much about it--as it turns out, it was a great place to spend the day! Here's Lisa and Amber on one of the beaches between Jacksonville and St. Augustine:
We rode the Segways for almost 2 hours, mostly on St. Augustine Beach:
After that, we drove the car farther down the beach, then went back to the old colonial part of St. Augustine to poke around some of the shops, then started driving around looking for a place for dinner. FINALLY found a little seafood restaurant that we could all agree on--it turned out to be another good choice, but at 9 p.m. we were so hungry, anything would probably have been good!
Here are just a few of the interesting things we saw while we were on our trip:
Although we'd planned to stay in San Juan for three nights, Amber had a Halloween party she really wanted to go to at home Saturday night, so we only stayed two nights in Jacksonville and came back home Saturday. Made it on all the flights without a problem and didn't even have to get up and leave at the crack of dawn this time!
Grandson Brian is in Basic Training for the Air National Guard at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, so I guess his graduation from Boot Camp November 11 will be our next trip. I'll try to post again after that.
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