Week of January 25th

Of course, the first thing that came to mind, when we determined the weekly celebration was for Nevada, was gambling. That was, at least, the 1st thing that I thought of, the boys had something else in mind. Not going there.

But, we needed to dig deeper. I found out that shrimp consumption in Las Vegas exceeds 60,000 pounds a day, higher than the rest of the country combined. Shrimp was definitely on the menu, should eating be involved.

The famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” is actually located four miles south of the Las Vegas city limits. Not part of the weekly celebration but I thought it was pretty interesting since the sign has been an American icon for almost 50 years.

I thought maybe we could wear masks in honor of Nevada, since in Elko people are required to wear a mask just to walk down the street. Oh wait, we did that last week.

Okay, now we’re getting to the good stuff. Nevada is the largest gold producing state in the nation. What better celebration that to buy me something in gold. Again, another no. What’s with these cheapskates? However, it also ranks number one in silver production, hence the “Silver State”. So, I went to my favorite store, ebay, and bought myself a silver bauble. Everyone defines celebration in their own way.

But since I had to include the guys, we planned a trip to our local casino, Harrah’s, as our Nevada celebration. Although most people think of Nevada or Atlantic City for gambling in the US, there are 19 states (and one US Territory, again did that last week) that allow commercial casinos in one form or another. Actually Utah & Hawaii are the only states that don’t allow some form of gambling.

So after an appetizer of shrimp cocktail, (never miss an opportunity) we headed out to Harrah’s. None of us are real big gamblers so this was going to be pretty uneventful.

To prove my point we started out with penny slots. I really don’t understand how people can spend hours just pressing the little buttons, hoping for the flashing lights. My husband headed out to the blackjack tables and after maybe 10 hands and up $7.50 he declared the night a success and quit gambling. I spent a few hours playing the poker slots and down only 15 bucks, also declared the night a success and was finished for the evening. Our friends spent the time traversing the floor from 1 penny slot area to another. Not sure what the collective damage was but now you can see why I said we weren’t much of the gamblers. Maybe next time they’ll go for the gold idea.

Before we called it an evening, we pulled out the “pear bag” (doesn’t everyone carry a bag of state names in their purses?) and selected our next adventure.

Color in the “Silver State” with bells, whistles and neon signs and travel just across the border to the “Copper State” - Arizona. 14 down - 38 to go.