Cripple Creek

Following the Pikes Peak Train, we decided to do a little gambling so we headed to Cripple Creek which had several casinos. Coming into town, the first one we saw was the Double Eagle Casino. It had a hotel attached so that is where we went.It was a very good choice. The hotel and casino were having some kind of promotion aimed at seniors. Of course, we fit right in. Unfortunately, after having some altitude sickness on the Pikes Peak Train, we found ourselves at 11,383 feet altitude. The altitude sickness hit us both, but it hit me worse. When we tried to check in, they sent us to the casino side to get a member card. The member card would accumulate points as we gambled and after so many points, we could get a free breakfast. With more points we could get a free room. The casino even gave us two cards in the same name so we could work on getting enough points.

Off we went to the slot machines and dropped a few bucks in the quarter slots, constantly checking our cards to see if we had enough points. While wondering how to get the points on our cards we walked by the penny slots. Some of Linda's relatives said they always did good on the penny slots, so I sat down and poked $20 in the machine. I played it for a few minutes and the machine went crazy. It started clicking and was adding pennies up at a steady rate. it just kept running so I pulled out my iPhone and using the stopwatch. I found that it added $10 of pennies every 2 minutes. Linda was just sitting  next to me waiting for the machine to quit so we could check and see if we had enough points for a free room. She got tired of waiting and stuck $5 in her penny slot machine. She hit it a few times and it went crazy too. My machine finally stopped and I had won $100. Linda's machine was like the bunny. It just ran and ran, finally ending after she had won $250. You can imagine how long that took at 2 minutes for every $10.

We had enough points for our room, a free breakfast and a free dinner. We finally got checked in and I needed to lay down. After about 15 minutes, Linda said she felt a lot better and she was going back to the slot machines. She was gone about 30 minutes and then came back to the room. She had won another $79. Considering our initials investment in the slots and the money we spent in the gift shop, we ended up $299 ahead. 

An excellent time on the slots. The next morning we got up and headed to Durango where we would ride the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. That is another story.