Part 1: Journey To the Center of the Casino

It’s a Friday night around 9:30 PM and my wife whispers “I’m feeling froggy” in my left ear. This is a code that she wants to join me for some kind of gambling adventure away from everyone else in the house. It had been a while since we’d done anything alone together. So, I agree and get ready thankful that I hadn’t had my edibles yet. I throw on some cologne and deodorant and a shirt jeans and shoes and meet her at the base of the stairs. Since the chaotic move to Arizona with a total of 9 people it’s been far from easy and we had lost each other a lot after. She offers to her parents that we “are off to Walmart to shop and will be back very late”.

We get into my red Ford Focus zoom car and she’ll be driving (lest I hear her complain about my driving until we reach our destination). We make a mad dash and are off in a flash to our favorite California casino. It’s 2019 pre-COVID and we’ve moved from Southern California to south Central Arizona. The drive will take close 2 hours each way as luckily the Casino we like is located in far Eastern California near Desert Hot Springs. We enter the narrow two-lane highway and head through several others in the true darkness that only the desert can oblige. No lights barely reflectors on the road guiding our every move. As we reach the interstate, we head west at a feverish pace with my wife’s lead foot. As we journey closer to our destination, she has her own game of Pole Position evidently racking for the high score. I can hear that voice “Prepare to Qualify”. I cherish these moments as they were the rare exception (other than sleep) that we had a few moments together alone.

We catch up on, well pretty much everything. Light idle conversations at first making their way to more important issues. Good things bad things issues with the kids the house my father-in-law and his health issues. It’s sad that these rare moments are all we get anymore. I always tried making the most of these occasions as everyday life diverted my wife’s attention away most of the time. So, these moments were like Christmas at age 9 with a tree full of presents. Getting at least closer to the same page in those moments was the closest to happy that we’d ever be, I think.

Ok digression over, the music plays we sing laugh tell jokes and pass the 2-and-a-half-hour drive rather quickly. These were like the good old days (earlier in our life together) when we lived in north Texas and made our way to Oklahoma and the casinos housed along interstate 35 there. I cherished those times as they were few and far between back then as well. How did we lose each other? It’s hard to say, this little getaway was one of the last ones we’d have save a few in the COVID years to come, despite the challenges we’d face on our return to Arizona.

Tune in next time for the continuing saga of: Out of Gas, Again and Other Misadventures.

-aaaa