Run Poker Run

Let me tell y'all about my first experience with a Poker Run. I like the riding to the different stops, I like the card drawing, but I don't care much for staying at each stop for a red beer or two. Once again, the Lord took care of us. I watched as each waitress would pour Mike's beer. I watched closely as she poured nearly four inches of tomato juice in a mug or cup or whatever each place offered, then pour about two or three inches of beer on top. I'm thinking Mike got maybe 12 ounces of beer the whole day out of four beers. I thought that was pretty good....hee hee. 12 oz of Oklahoma beer is about like 8 oz of Missouri beer, which is what he usually drinks. At one point, he even mentioned that it tasted like he was drinking V-8. "That's just God taking care of your dumb ass" is what I wanted to say, but what actually came out of my mouth was "Oh, really?".

We left our house at 6:23 a.m., Mike driving the bike, and me in my car. I stopped at Wyandotte and got some gas in my car then went on over to Mike's parents' house. I left my car there when Mike picked me up around 7:20. We made it to the big fancy casino, aka Buffalo Run, by 7:30 a.m. and it started to rain. But no worries, we had our rain suits on, we'd seen the big gray clouds and put on our rain suits at his parents' house. We got registered and everything squared away and we still had over an hour before the first bike could take off. So, what else is there to do? We went and ate, I was hungry and breakfast had been promised to me at 6:00. My cousin, Mitchell and his woman went with us to the Townsman and ate a big breakfast so we could be nice and uncomfortable for the first leg of the ride.

From Buffalo Run in Miami, we drove to Royal Bay in Grove. I drew a Queen of Hearts. Not too bad of a start. From there we went to Spavinaw and I drew a 10 of Diamonds. It just went down hill from there. I don't even remember what I drew at Langly or Vinita, the next two stops. At the last stop in Miami, I drew a deuce of Spades. As soon as we left Miami, the rain stopped and held off until we returned to Miami.

Mike and I went to El Charro and ate around 4:30, the first food I'd had since breakfast. On our way to eat, the rain came down in bucket loads. Bucket. Loads. While we were eating, the rain stopped again. I was so glad, too because I was starting to get a little cold. On our way back to the casino, Mike and I saw.....dum da da duummmmmm......a tornado. Yes. We saw a real tornado. I've lived here my whole entire life, almost 33 years now, and this was the first tornado I've ever seen. We were on 22nd street, heading east, when I looked over to the north and said "Is that smoke?" We stopped and watched it and it wasn't smoke, that's for sure.

After finding out that we didn't win squat, and looking at every single vendor, we went inside to spend our $10 in free play. We didn't win squat with that either, and while we were inside, the rain really started coming down. We only thought it was coming down hard earlier. It was coming down so hard that the entire parking lot was ankle deep in water and we couldn't see from one end of the casino to the other. Yep, we drove off on the bike in that down pour. I didn't have far to go, just to Mike's Mom's house. But, poor Mike, he had to drive all the way home. Thank goodness, when he got a few miles out of Miami, the rain stopped and it hadn't even rained at all from Wyandotte on home. Flash flood conditions and dry dust just 10 miles away from each other. How typically Oklahoma.