I’m not a gambler.  My version of gambling is – do I have to shave my legs today?  What are the odds of my pant leg hiking up, so anyone will notice.  So, with that mindset, I went to the casinos this weekend.

My husband’s cousins from Texas came to town and we tried to show them a good time.  The first day we took them to Bricktown and walked until our feet were screaming.  The cousin’s Fitbit said she had the best day ever!  We rode the water taxi, visited a winery/tasting room, roamed the Festival of the Arts, ate too much, got sunburned, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. 

The second day was once again wineries in northwest Oklahoma. We tasted and purchased a lot of Oklahoma wines. I was amazed at some of the wineries that showed up in the middle of nowhere and were wonderful. My husband’s family is originally from the Fairview/Isabella area and we went to the old cemetery where the cousins used to be dragged by their mothers when they were boys. We found lots of headstones with names they recognized.  It’s a tiny rural cemetery and a pickup pulled in and a woman got out.  “What are you doing?” she asked kindly but firmly.  Turned out she was a shirt-tail relative we’d never met.  

Today it is casinos in the Ponca City area with a steak dinner promised.  On Saturday after the Bricktown tour on the way home to Enid, we stopped at Lucky Star Casino near El Reno.  Big gambler that I am, I put a $20 bill into a slot machine.  I managed to bet on it for about an hour and came home with a voucher too small for anymore bets.  Oh well, I could have bought more wine instead of pugging the machines, but I didn’t. I was on vacation.

We promise not to eat so much today.  We might not last at the gambling casinos. The cousins are high rollers unlike my husband and me and they are used to the life style.  But I could feed the machines $20 bills, or I could hand them over to a winery and put on weight.  Either way, it will be fun just because of the company. 

We are reconnecting with family after almost 30 years and we know we don’t have as many years ahead as we did behind.  We’re making the most of the adventure.

Wish me luck at the casinos today and I’ll try not to eat and drink as much today or get sunburned.  But those casinos can really make the Fitbit happy.  Some of them are huge!  Maybe I’ll get a little exercise.