lost lake

It was another cold night in the woods at Lost Lake, but we slept well. I may stop on the way back from Seattle and stay another day there. Last night we set out walking to find the pool and hot tub, but we couldn’t find them in the dark. Today, before leaving we drove to find them. No wonder we couldn’t find them. They were about a mile away.
But, the hot tubs were inside and there were very nice shower rooms leading to them.

Today it is starting to drizzle a little and the thought of sitting in a hot tub is very appealing. But I checked out without using the hot tub and got back on Interstate 5 north. We got about 10 miles down the road and came to Fort Lewis, Washington.

It brought back some memories. When I was in the Army in 1969 I was here for about 3 days getting ready for a flight to South Korea where I was stationed at Panmunjom, (A United Nations Compound) where the “peace talks” are being held. The United Nations continues to be ‘all talk’ wherever it tries to help. These “talks” have been going on since I was 4 years old and I am now 57. I only had to stay in South Korea for 14 months, but saw some folks die while other people talked and talked while each side accused the other as being the aggressor.

I stopped at a KFC right outside one of the gates to Fort Lewis. I saw signs of support, yellow ribbons, and memorial altars to our military. My eyes teared up a little. When we came back in 1970 people were screaming at us and calling us the “bad guys”. I am glad these troops have our support.

I saw about 10 army guys and women eating lunch at the KFC and said to them “God bless you.”

Back in the RV and down the road to South Tacoma I decided to exit the freeway and just drive blindly around South Tacoma.

Boy, did I.

I lost all sense of direction and was trying to use the waterfront as a landmark. (Bad idea). I didn’t know Tacoma came to a point with water on three sides. Once I got to that point I knew I was in trouble and my “water navigation method” was not going to work.

Finally I saw a sign pointing the way toward I5 and I was soon passing the Tacoma dome. I wanted to stop and look at a map to see how I had gotten so lost. But, before I could do even do that, I saw a casino up ahead, but couldn’t get over for the exit. I got off the next exit after it when I saw a Flying J service station off to my left.

I had dropped my power inverter and broke it, or so I thought. I use the power inverter to take power from the RV cigarette lighter and run it to the laptop computer. The inverter converts the DC from the RV to AC. I don’t want to run the generator just to produce AC to power the laptop so the inverter is a great solution. However, the power inverter wouldn’t work anymore after I dropped it while it was plugged in. I had thought I had “shorted” it out. I found out the next day my inverter still worked and I had blown a fuse in the cigarette lighter. I knew Flying J’s sold power inverters. So I thought I would buy one and maybe double back to the casino I just missed at the same time.

This flying J was at the entrance of the Port of Tacoma. What a busy place! I saw Trucks, cranes, containers and ships everywhere I looked.

The flying J was out of power inverters so I thought I would write and upload with the generator on next time I saw a motel advertising wireless. I saw one as soon as I came out of the Flying J It was “Freddies Casino” in Fife at there I would spend the afternoon.

They had two games of 3/6 limit going on and I soon lost about $100 over the next couple of hours playing second best hands. Then I was moved to the main game where I was able to take down a couple of monster pots. It was a wild game, and I was taking risks with flush draws and suited connectors and completed a couple to get all my money back.

This particular Casino is also a pretty good restaurant. I had fresh salmon, stuffed with crab over wild rice with steamed vegetables for lunch and a bud light beer. Poker players get 60 percent off the price so this great meal was only $8. I have been primarily eating only in the RV or a couple of wings at KFC or a bean burrito at Taco Bell so this meal felt extravagant.

At the main table one of the guys claimed to be a poker pro from Las Vegas that made 10K a month playing poker for a living. He said he grew up in this area and was visiting for a month long fishing trip. When asked why he would play this little game? He claimed it was just for fun. When he found out I was from San Diego he asked if I was up here fishing? I said, “just at the tables….” Yuk, yuk….

I am a little suspect of his story. I think he is from Las Vegas, I am sure he plays a lot of poker there, but he was unaware of the on-line prohibition that might be signed into law by the President tomorrow. His only response to that news was, “I don’t care, I don’t play poker online”. If he earned his living via playing poker, I would think he would realize that wasn’t a good thing because it could decrease the numbers of people in places, where there are no casinos, from playing on-line and then coming to Las Vegas to play live.

He also was a little frustrated when he was down a $100, but that may have only been his ego. He seemed to have a pretty big one.

After I broke even, I decided to head for the Muckleshoot Indian Casino. They have the largest poker room in Washington and some bigger games.

But, before I jumped back on the Freeway, I pulled into two different motels that advertised wireless in every room. Both of them had wireless security in place, I could not use them without knowing the password. Apparently, locked doors is still the difference between the country and the citys, even virtually.

I also have been frustrated in the three state rest stops I have tried. My computer will not connect with their open access wireless service. I pull as close as I can get to the wireless antenna on the roof of the rest stop. Even showing a strong signal received, it will not connect to my computer.

About a 15 minute drive took me to the Auburn area and the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation. They do have a large casino and a nice size poker room. It is about the size of Oceans 11 in Oceanside.

They did have some big games. Even bigger then I want to play. They had 50/100, 40/80, 30/60, 20/40 limit games going. Most of the stacks in the 50/100 game were about $5000

I arrived just in time to buy-in to a $135 tournament and played well in it until I was eliminated in 23 place.

I then played 4/8 limit for a couple of hours and tripled up my $100 buy-in in a couple of hours. That was some poor play by a couple of players that accounted for my profit.

I got called to a $10-20 limit game, which is about the biggest limit game I am comfortable playing.

I lost my profit from 4/8 after a couple of hours at the 10/20 game. The play was definitely better then the 4/8 game. I played a little too fast and loose. I would have done better moving right to the 3/5 No Limit game. (Technicially, it is not no-limit.) The bets are $5-500 and the buy-in is minimum $100, maximum $500. The rules in this reservation only allow a max bet of $500 It is very similar to the 2/4 N/L game I play at Sycuan.

After finally getting on the No-Limit, (which is all I wanted to play here), at midnight, I was too tired to play very long. I had already played 9 hours today. I doubled up my $200 buy-in within 30 minutes. Now that I was even for the day, I wished everyone a good night and went back to the RV and went to sleep.

I was told there is a 10:30 a.m. tournament so I set my mental alarm to wake me in time.

During the night, I dreamed of poker hands. But, I don’t remember if I won or lost in my sleep.