Honu-Hugger
Well-known
Thursday my dead relatives rolled over in their graves and the ones that are still alive wrote me out of their wills and their address books: my wife and I spent Thanksgiving, the most wholesome of American holidays and traditions, in a Nevada casino. I'll probably be mulling this decision over while I rot in purgatory 🙂.
We've never done this before; usually Thanksgiving is a big family get-together at my brother's house (a convenient location). This year I lost another uncle (three of four now gone) and his passing caused my Mom and Dad to stay back East to spend the holiday with my aunts. Relieved of the hosting duties my brother accepted an invitation from friends in California that have always joined us for dinner at his house. Karen and I were planning to fix dinner for ourselves but neither of us really enjoy cooking all that much; then the idea hit to go to Nevada instead because the casino's always offer a great dinner and we assumed Thanksgiving would only be better.
However, this was not an easy choice to make -- it seemed contradictory to what Thanksgiving has always meant for both of us. To help rationalize what we were doing Karen said at least we will get the Sky-Miles, and that's when I thought if we're getting anything at all out of this deal it's "Hell-Miles." The trip takes us through some interesting desert country so I did throw a Contax IIa and a 25/4 Topogon in the car with me.
It seems as though a roll of film will last me forever so I neglected to check the exposure counter when I left the house and hadn't bothered to take extra film because this wasn't really a photographic outing. Friday morning as I lined up a shot of some working cowboys moving about two-hundred head across the highway I discovered that I had already exposed my last frame. In Nevada you can legally place a bet on anything, buy booze and the companionship of a young lady 24/7 ever day of the year...but try buying a roll of film at 7:30 in the morning at a casino.
It's been quite a year: my father-in-law is in assisted living, Uncle Bob passed, my older brother and his wife are going through a divorce, and I'm roaring through the Nevada desert on Highway 93 after spending Thanksgiving at a casino...listening to Merle Haggard sing Tommy Duncan's old song "Time Changes Everything." Double "Hell-Miles" when you spend family holidays in casino's, but all the same dinner was fabulous.
We've never done this before; usually Thanksgiving is a big family get-together at my brother's house (a convenient location). This year I lost another uncle (three of four now gone) and his passing caused my Mom and Dad to stay back East to spend the holiday with my aunts. Relieved of the hosting duties my brother accepted an invitation from friends in California that have always joined us for dinner at his house. Karen and I were planning to fix dinner for ourselves but neither of us really enjoy cooking all that much; then the idea hit to go to Nevada instead because the casino's always offer a great dinner and we assumed Thanksgiving would only be better.
However, this was not an easy choice to make -- it seemed contradictory to what Thanksgiving has always meant for both of us. To help rationalize what we were doing Karen said at least we will get the Sky-Miles, and that's when I thought if we're getting anything at all out of this deal it's "Hell-Miles." The trip takes us through some interesting desert country so I did throw a Contax IIa and a 25/4 Topogon in the car with me.
It seems as though a roll of film will last me forever so I neglected to check the exposure counter when I left the house and hadn't bothered to take extra film because this wasn't really a photographic outing. Friday morning as I lined up a shot of some working cowboys moving about two-hundred head across the highway I discovered that I had already exposed my last frame. In Nevada you can legally place a bet on anything, buy booze and the companionship of a young lady 24/7 ever day of the year...but try buying a roll of film at 7:30 in the morning at a casino.
It's been quite a year: my father-in-law is in assisted living, Uncle Bob passed, my older brother and his wife are going through a divorce, and I'm roaring through the Nevada desert on Highway 93 after spending Thanksgiving at a casino...listening to Merle Haggard sing Tommy Duncan's old song "Time Changes Everything." Double "Hell-Miles" when you spend family holidays in casino's, but all the same dinner was fabulous.
