A good day - got up at 12:30PM, got to the car at 1:30, stopped at a Mens Wearhouse and bought a nice pair of black pants to go with the suitcoat I brought along for my nephew's wedding: my main reason for my visit.
I signed off with the fam about 10:45PM & drove the 25 miles (and minutes) back to my hotel. There's a quaint toll booth on the thruway over the Grand Island bridges: $1 each way.
I settled onto my usual starting machine bank, 50c x 5 line BP at midnight.
Dropped 300 in a longish session on all 5 machines, & got a baileys coffee, delivered in a styrofoam cup which turned out nice as it kept it warm.
Switched to $1 single line bonus, +200.
Next was $1 Bonus Deluxe, the progressive Royal meter had zoomed to $5566 since I played it yesterday closer to $4900. I had a streak of about 15 hands that resulted in three quads for $400 each, quit that session abruptly at +900.
There was thumping music playing in their stage/dancing area, entertaining enough, but not a lot of party-ers there and it wasn't good for concentrating on long sessions for us players.
Moved to a quieter zone where I dropped 400 to $1 single line DDB.
Took a spin on $1 x 5 line BP, scene of yesterday's Royal, and, eh, not again: dropped 700 despite 4 quads for $125 each.
It's after 3:00 now, casino got real quiet, so I went back to the $1 Bonus deluxe with the prog RF. Hit a quad for $400, but I got to be $700 down. I got to admit my mind was elsewhere, but I wasn't missing any holds - I wasn't THAT spacy.
I had a moment holding 3 to the Royal, draw cards come in, kinda slow, and "kachunky". I noticed first that they were black, then that they were both spades, the machine kinda hesitated to spit out my 25 credits for a flush, then it froze, (shit! I'm thinking) another delay and then a tune and an error message, this didn't make sense. I looked at the drawn cards, J-T spades. Still not 100% yet on what was happening, then I look at the other three to the Royal, recognize AKQ spades, read the error message which reads "JACKPOT! 5604 CREDITS" and the moment of recognition strikes me. It's the Big One. The actual time lapsed between hitting the draw button and here is about THREE SECONDS.
Yay! this is goodness, another evening and Tour changer, and good copy for this trip report. What a lot of odd thoughts, eh? I stand up and extend two fists up high and pump the air and say (not shout) YES! Nobody sees me in the nearly abandoned casino. I fall into my Jackpot routine, slide my camera out of my cargo pants "camera" pocket, take the pic, fish out my wallet, calculate my tip of $45 and pick out the bills, the nice attendant lady shows up, always a happy conversation, she goes off to get The Money, I mark down the cold line of text on my index card log: "RF/5604" in the same size handwriting as my previous entry of "Quad Q/400" and decide NOT to be hyper and load $100 in the adjacent machine and keep playing, like I do sometimes for more "mundane" handpays when they appear earlier in the night. I'm gonna sit and stare at this screen for a few minutes and ENJOY it.
The adjacent machine shows the reset meter for a RF at $4000.00. Once someone else starts playing on this bank of 10 machines, it'll read $4000.01 and the next flock of chasers will grow as the jackpot grows. There were many more chasers yesterday than on day 1. It'll be interesting to see what it gets up in my last session next week.
Anyhow, attendant shows up, carrying the MAGIC bundle of $5000 with the BROWN wrapper plus the extra bills. Only ONE attendant makes the payouts here, unlike Reno where it always has to be two, one to witness. I tell her not to bother to break & count out the bundle, she smiles, that's good, and she counts out the $604, which, as all my two other handpays here contained also: 4 x $20 and 2 X $10, in case I need the change in case I tip. It's mildly tacky, no issue really. I sign my tax form, she gives me my carbon copy and she's off with advice: " Don't Give It All Back" I joke, "Not tonite at least."
Then the unthinking closer so common from all attendants everywhere: "Good Luck." What? Just had it. A cashed out the remainder making this the last hand of the night. + $4600 for the night. Call it three hours play.
<After I wrote this paragraph, I reminded myself to count the bundle: it was correct.>
Wedding tomorrow with Reception into the night at a swank downtown hotel banquet room. Obviously Big Day for nephew and wife. They're hitting the real jackpot in life and love that's not monetary, but the pile of wedding presents will feel good too, as I seem to recall.
day 4
slick wedding and fun reception party.
did an hour post-wedding in the casino about 1:30AM. Lost 1300.
day 5 or "Something wonderful is happening"
I skipped the family get-together today in favor of sleeping in thru the afternoon.
Then, the Magic:
two $4000 Royals in two hours today. and it's only 7PM.
UP 6900 on the day so far.
up 14,700 on the trip so far, with only 14 hours of play.
getting very close to making up for my last RENO trip loss.
took a room break to crow online to a few friends.
returned to gaming for another 4 hours.
Hit a quad playing $5 BP and scurried away up $100.
but dropped 1300 on mostly $1 coin games.
Up 5600 on day 5.
Day 6
