The night before when I had returned to the Holiday Inn, I noticed some weird lights and structures in the distance not far from where I stayed. I figured for whatever reason that the most likely rationale for this was that they were probably grain elevators or natural gas platforms or something of that sort. The next morning revealed that I was at a hotel a stone’s throw from Worlds of Fun/Oceans of Fun. I cannot begin to tell you how utterly hilarious this was to me.

There was a time, not even all that long ago, when roller coasters were the most significant non-human or animal factor in my life. My wife and most of my friends are people whom I had met through the hobby of riding roller coasters. I did that for a solid quarter century before walking away before it took my mobility (my neck and back are both very jacked up); somewhere in my files is a picture of me with a piece of paper onto which the number “1000” is printed for when I had hit that benchmark of different roller coasters I had been on. Doing that took me all over the world, and I would even say that 2015-2019 was probably the prime of my coaster riding days in sheer volume. Even as I was doing that, I was also making sure to diversify my overall experiences by mixing in museums, art exhibits and galleries, quality restaurants, national parks, all sorts of things.

Yes, I know all about the roller coaster that is near you or was. Wherever you are; doesn’t matter. Did it get torn down in the 1960s? Changes nothing. I know all about it. The older it gets, the more likely I know too. There’s one coaster youtuber who you can see footage of me skydiving circa 2007 (in Vegas, where else?) on his site. I know everyone too.

(Joe, you around here? I know you’re a BJ AP. You told me 20+ years ago and I never forgot. We should talk. Don’t worry, if you aren’t here, I know where you are. That’s part of the work I’m known for, after all. I’ll get a hold of you eventually.)

:ahem:

The Holiday Inn here was marginal. I opted for the welcome gift of two snacks and a drink that I could eat after I’d get stoned to fall asleep, and noted the distinct smell of sewage in the lobby. That’s just terrific. The girl working the desk is apparently working for the hotel operator and they platoon their staffing, which is also deeply unsatisfactory to me but you know, I’m here for one night because the corporate rate I get is reasonable and I didn’t want to waste 25,000 points on a Towneplace. Also: lot of snow in Kansas City sitting around at this time, which considering that I’d seen grass about two days prior in Michigan really startled me.

First thing in the morning was to pop over to Ameristar and see what was hopping. Probably made it over here around 7AM; very little to work with. I managed to score $22.60 in total, but like, this is classic boring grinding for pocket change. Like with the St. Louis market, Boyd absolutely has the lock on the best overall facility, and it’s a huge former Station casino with all the bells and whistles you’d want in a regional casino. However, much like the St. Louis Ameristar that I’ll be at a week later, I just don’t know what set of circumstances leads to me being here. I guess if Boyd does a status match and we decide to convert to Blue Chip? It just seems so improbable.

Harrah’s KC, meanwhile, was very much an up and down situation. I got killed on Pigs (well, relatively speaking; lost $131 that play), but then rebounded massively (OK, massive to me in so much as I didn’t have that many plays to recoup $131 on) on video poker to leave up another $30. It’s funny to me that Ameristar’s closest competitor in STL is the Hollywood, and the feels I have about the Hollywood St. Louis and Harrah’s Kansas City are very, very similar. If I google this, I’m gonna find common ancestry between them, aren’t I? This makes Argosy being so bougie looking inside all the more spectacular to me in that St. Louis really doesn’t have an equivalent to that in the other 3 casinos in that market I haven’t named yet.

After APing at these two spots, I went back to the room, finished packing, and bailed. Since I was checking in with a 5 night stay ahead, I wasn’t terribly concerned about my arrival time into Tulsa. I’ve driven in during daylight before, and I’m probably 25 years removed from being old enough that driving at night is an actual concern for me. This left me with a conundrum. I had planned to ride into Tulsa by going south via US 59 to get dem counties checked off and then roll through a series of casinos I had hit the year prior: Osage Bartlesville & Tulsa and Cherokee Ramona for sure. But then I thought that, you know, that idea might not be what I wanted to do. I got a bee in my bonnet to vulture some slots and see what happens, and I don’t have any data points whatsoever for the Miami, OK area for the fact I’d never been. I called another audible: fresh Rural Kansas can wait.

(No, I did not go to Bally’s. I dunno, fuck Bally’s I guess. Maybe it had all the machines. I just didn’t care and I think I got hot nothing there in a prior AP visit.)

As you approach Miami, Oklahoma from the north on US 69, you ride directly through Treece, KS and Picher, OK, both of which are modern ghost towns which were abandoned in this century. Nearby mining had led to toxins being present in amounts simply unfit for human habitation; lots of buildings were knocked down but plenty of homes and such are standing and slowly decaying (and probably hazardous waste inside and out). I’d seen Centralia in PA before the last few buildings were bulldozed; while this certainly lacks the hellscape nature of Centralia (it was abandoned because theres an underground coal fire there that will burn for hundreds of years), there’s far more in terms of structures here and it’s really wild to see it. And it is close to these casinos. Like ten minutes drive away? There’s a giant strip mining shovel out this way that is an attraction onto itself because it is so huge.

Over the next few hours, I would be taking time to visit not one, not two, not three, but seven casinos, 6 of which were in a fairly tight geographic area in and around the town of Miami. I always knew about Miami, Oklahoma because some boxing promoters got deals to run cards there at the Buffalo Run. Now, here I was going to Buffalo Run and to describe/see casinos few people outside Oklahoma ever step foot in.

Quapaw Casino: The first casino of the day in Oklahoma is reminiscent of Cherokee Ramona to me, and as I learned, this level of gaming facility is pretty much the standard in much of Oklahoma. To paint a visual picture of any of them, you just sort of imagine a shed. The shed is not going to ever be symmetrical, but it feels like a shed and looks like one from outside. You go in, and there’s slots. 5000 square feet of them, +/- 33%. Somewhere in a corner, you’ll find a video poker machine, and you’ll look at the paytables, and you aren’t offended. “$1 JoB is 8/6, BP is 7/5? I’ve seen worse.” you say. There’s only 3 of them, none of which appear on the census, likely because they’re under an operator and being rented at these locations (I assume the licensed operator is Platinum Gaming Ventures, LLC based on what I see on videopoker.com).

At this specific slot shed, I got beat by Prosperity Pearl when the purple gem was in the low 60s, then rebounded on one of those Ultra Rush Phoenix games that had been left primed. I was down $28 but decided I’d play some standard Bonus Poker and see if I could go back to even or go down $40. Instead I went down $60. If the worst I tilt on this trip is for $20, that’s pretty good. At this point too, I’m like way up for the trip. Definitely over $500 up in terms of bankroll. Yeah, obviously this isn’t a sustainable lifestyle. The federal per diem on my mileage alone was like $600 at this stage.

Buffalo Run: They have a 70,000 square foot floor? The size of the Detroit casinos? No. Noooooo. That is not true. There’s a hallway in this place connecting the hotel building and main casino building that I recall being filled with Hunt for Neptune’s Gold (and themed to it as well) but that legit could be 1/10 of their claimed floor. This place feels way smaller than what is listed here. I know it is bigger than Bay Mills in Michigan’s UP (which is like 15,000 square feet I think?) but that’s what my initial reaction was like to it. Pigs here was at 21, but that was it. There’s two Ultimate X machines, both located in the bar. One was broken, the other had no multipliers. Buffalo variations weren’t ready to go not was anything else. I wasn’t into risking money here at that level of “advantage” so I bailed.

Prairie Moon: Google Maps sent me on a left hand turn a little early, taking me past the discount cigarette retail location, police station, and fire station to a snow/ice covered road that I crept to the casino on. This is what greeted me:

A fucking book slot. Do you mean to tell me that this tribe converted the library to a casino? This is the smallest casino I have ever been in, being dwarfed by the likes of the Bonanza in Fallon, NV. Rich Little Hens was at 18 free spins and I thought, “What comps do I get from this place? If I win the Grand, do I take the machine home?”

Stables: Remember what I said about all these slot places being the same? That’s basically true. Also true: They all have AP games, probably 10-16 per. Now, how frequently are they left positive? I can’t answer that. But on this one day, I encountered multiple positive games I did not play, and some I did. Lobstermania Deluxe had the mini meter at like $19.59 ($20 MHB, meter moves one penny per play). I mean, OK, sure, I’ll take the free money. I just fast played that, made my $16, and left. However, the notion of someone like a Mickey Crimm coming to town, living out at, say, Buffalo Run’s RV park if you have one (VERY trucker friendly too), and you spend a week really soaking it up, I believe you could make good money here. Not like “I can retire early” money necessarily but like this is a play I can absolutely see working out for someone. I just can’t picture anyone with a decent paying job being the one who gives that a shot.

I got out of here pretty quickly and had made short work of the Miami proper spots. I went on my phone and checked distances and decided that I’d chart my course to the hotel the long way to avoid tolls and because I can pop in three more casinos.

High Winds: First off, LOL at this name, like calling your casino Freezing Rain. They had some UX and I managed to find a couple of multipliers on, for which I garnered a push. Frankenstein and Buffalo Link can be found here, which isn’t true of the sheds so much. But they had the rest of the typical bunch – Prosperity Pearl, Regal Riches, Pigs and/or Hens, Ascension, and Magic Treasures all being fairly common – plus a few MHB games. As Oklahoma Slot Sheds go, this one is bluer than others and not so bad.

Riverbend: Looks a ton like the Osage Bartlesville and Tulsa casino hotels – 100 rooms that looks like a 2 1/2 business hotel tacked onto a small casino floor. Nothing APable here, but my dumb ass saw Wolf Run Gold with the mini being pegged at 32 spins. I don’t actually know if this game has any advantage to it though I assume the answer is “no, it isn’t” honestly from the overall dynamics. Well, I wind up going up on this, hitting as high as $148 and dropping back to $115.50 when I cashed out. I’m not sinking hundreds into a suspect “advantage” just to see how it goes at a casino I get no comps from that I might not ever return to (SPOILER: I returned 1 week later). TITO machines don’t provide change; a bingo slot turned that ticket into $3. Huh. Isn’t that nice?

At this point, I actually drive a substantial amount again, diverting when I came across a train accident and emergency response (???) and had to manually get myself around it. It was time to hit the last casino of the day….

Cherokee Will Rogers Downs: This place, aesthetically, is a fucking disaster. There’s like a couple hundred machines, a lot of empty space, a desperate looking bar, and then some pool tables in a space that is way too large to be for a couple of pool tables. Hens was at 19; again, didn’t play it. Did, however, put $120 in singles and fives into a machine so I could convert it into fat bills. My vision of a Racino is Horseshoe Shelbyville. This place is as dissimilar from Horseshoe Shelbyville as Adam West’s Batman is from Christian Bale’s.

That was it – I was skipping Hard Rock and River Spirit. Sunday night at either? No. No no no. I had to unpack, figure out dinner, maybe get groceries, all that stuff. I got to my Fairfield Inn room and was greeted with the always slightly terrifying “We were expecting you!” I got a complementary upgrade to a suite for the week and went about the process of putting my clothes away, arranging things the way I liked them, getting my temporary office set up, all that. I’m sure given that this is the night before the start of the Chili Bowl that I was just tweaking out on anxiety; no clue when I went to bed. I hope it was earlier, since I was up the next morning at 6:00 to get ready for 7:00 AM calls.