During our trip, we stayed at a really nice resort outside of Phoenix that came equipped with spa, golf course and an Indian Casino. That’s not uncommon for these parts, it seems because in our three days in Arizona, we saw about four Indian Casinos in person and signs for many more.
We had planned on going to the Indian casino at least once after dinner but due to the time change, we didn't make it the first two nights we were in there (in bed at 8:30pm, 10:00 pm respectively) – but our last night, we were determined to hit that casino!
I had walked passed the casino, the first morning we were there, - it was about 6am Arizona time. The parking lot to the casino was probably half full – lots of RVs parked out there – it was like walking through an abandoned football tailgate. The evening we finally went to the casino, the place was PACKED. I’m not surprised but it still amazed me a little bit.
When we first opened the doors to the casino, this big wall of smoke just hit us like a ton of bricks. I think we’re so used to walking into bars and restaurants with the no smoking ban that to see and smell all this smoke really threw us off. And helped determined that our time there was short-lived.
We quickly made our way through the casino – checking out the slot machines and heading back to the buffet. This wasn’t the kind of buffet that you probably hear about or have been to in Vegas. It was $12.50/head after all – I wasn’t expecting lobster tails or shrimp cocktail. Instead, it was like something out of Old Country Buffet – a salad bar, a dessert bar and multiple meat stations. Some of the other patrons that were at the buffet – the character players/towns people from the ‘Raw Hide Wild West’ show down the road, some golfers, and the family I dubbed ‘Jon Pinet’s family.’ If you’re not familiar with Jon Pinet, he is the comedian that has the schtick about eating at a Chinese buffet when you’re a fat person and the Chinese owners get really upset/annoyed with the amount of food that the fat person eats. Anyways – this family of six had two girls – one older girl that was extremely large, and one pre-teen girl that was well on her way to following her sister’s footsteps. It was quite sad, actually…..the larger of the two girls had gone back for her third plate of food and I had gone in about three minutes after her – she also came out five minutes after me too. I’m telling you – this girl could really benefit from the ‘Biggest Loser.’
Another funny observation about the buffet - it was WAY in the back of the casino - you pretty much had to walk the length of the casino to get there. The buffet was separated from the casino by maybe 20 yards of a hallway - and that portion was no smoking. It really amazed me how the smoke never managed to drift back to the buffet area...wonder if there were secret vents or something.
After dinner, my husband said I could go be a slot jockey for awhile. It was hard to find a machine that I liked – so I kind of just walked around and did the ‘Phoebe’ (def: observing other slot jockeys and taking over at their abandoned machine if they haven’t won off of it). Upon my observation, I have to say that you can’t keep the handicapped from their gambling! As we were entering, we saw some people getting wheeled out in their wheelchairs. When my husband was looking over a not-so-crowded black jack table, one lady in her automatic wheelchair almost ran him over to get to one of the empty stools at the table. These were bar-stool height – so she had no issues getting out of her wheelchair and hopping up into a chair (this would have had her disqualified from the Miss Handicap USA pageant, by the way). I saw another lady in a wheelchair whose only handicap I could observe was her being severely overweight. She was on one side in a row of slot machines playing when I was heading to the bathroom. When I was walking back from the bathroom, she had wheeled herself (not manually)to the other side of the row, asked a man to move the chair that was already there, and began her gambling. She was a byoot – a cigarette in one hand, chapstick in the other…good thing the modern-day slot machines are equipped with buttons instead of the old-time levers...and it's nice to see her taking preventative measures from the smoke and dryness of the climate to prevent dry lips.
When we had finally had enough, we started heading out towards the exit only to see a midget woman being questioned by security. The midget woman had crutches and she was wearing wedged flip flops – the cheap kind you can probably find at Wal-Mart or Kmart (not to be a snob, but that seemed to be her speed)….the wedges were of two different sizes – one side was a thick wedge, the other side looked like she had put it through it’s paces and it had diminished to half of what the other side was. My husband thought it could’ve been on purpose since she was in crutches. I wasn't about to ask.
Lots of action going on at an Indian casino – that’s for sure. I would’ve liked to take part in bingo in hopes that it would be like a church bingo function and I could get ten cards in a row and roll down the line in a wheelie chair and stamp along the way – but the room was packed – super packed. And I don’t know how long I would’ve been able to last in the second-hand smoke.
And where do these people come from? I guess when you can't afford Vegas, there are the Indians.
Overall – I don’t think I would go back to an Indian Casino – I’m not a gambler and it’s just not my scene. But you sure do come out of it with lots of stories!
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