Technically, I spent a total of six days in Henderson.  This covers three consecutive ones where the individual days do not have enough content to be the least bit interesting so I am combining them.

This morning I woke up at Fiesta Henderson at 6:00 am.  This is the latest I have slept since arriving.  This is still a bit ridiculous, but I will take the small victory.  I kind of have to since it is the first thing resembling a victory that I have had in days.

Downstairs to Starbucks.  Iced coffee and coffee cake.  Nature’s perfect pair.

Fiesta Henderson has penny Supertimes Pay video poker.  Woo, I get to play ten play Supertimes Pay!  It was fun even on pennies.  I also hit Aces twice so my wanting to hit Aces every day got fulfilled.  TWICE.  Look at me, all excited about an $8 win. Oh how the mighty have fallen.  At least I have a picture to post of anything.  (I only took a photo of one of them apparently.)

I did the Stations daily promotion where you can pick a penguin and win a huge prize.  I did the first part okay, the second part, not so much. I won 1500 Boarding Pass points.   Meh.

Back to the room to pack and check out.  Today I am moving to Hawthorn Wyndham Suites in Henderson.  This was booked via Hotwire.  I actually booked it when I was in Urumqi, China.  I was having a mental meltdown from being on such a difficult trip and decided that I would be going to Las Vegas to spend time in familiar territory.

I picked Henderson for these dates because it is New Year’s Eve.  This not only makes the Strip and Downtown out of my price level, it also makes the amount of people in both those places way out of my “want it” level.

My hotel was one of those “see if after you buy it” places that was described as an all suite hotel, and as having a casino.   It was not an all suite hotel (I didn’t care) and the casino was closed.  I asked one of the employees about it.  It was named “My Casino” and had recently been bought by Dotty’s, and it was vacant for the time being.

I took the bus here.  It should have (and would have) been easy except I got off at the wrong stop.  I was supposed to get off at Palo Verde at Boulder and instead I got off at Palo Verde and not Boulder.  I had to wait half an hour for the next bus.  Sigh.  As cold as it has been while I have been here, today was slightly warm and the sun was burning me.  I had to keep turning because my jeans were on fire and burning my legs.

I get to the hotel and am told I cannot check in because it is not 3:00 yet.  Fine by me, I will just sit here in the lobby until my jeans cool down.   I didn’t even make it one inch towards the couches before it was discovered that I could check in early.  Woo!  My room came with a refrigerator and microwave.  Oh also a DVD player.  There was also laundry facilities.  Which, if you have ever read any Las Vegas message board or Facebook group dedicated to Las Vegas, goes something like this:

The Internet:  OH MY GOD, WHY WOULD ANYONE DO LAUNDRY IN LAS VEGAS?

Me: Well this is a twenty day trip so…

The Internet:  OH MY GOD, YOU ARE ON VACATION.  WHO WANTS TO DO LAUNDRY?

Me:  Well, see aforementioned twenty day trip

The Internet:  OH MY GOD, I WOULD NEVER DO LAUNDRY IN LAS VEGAS?

Me: So…..don’t?

My total cost via Hotwire for three nights here, which included New Year’s Eve, was $152.45.  No resort fee.  Free breakfast.  It also included free dinner on the night I arrived but I totally napped through that.   This was a great deal.   But the lack of casino bothered me.  I ended up writing to Hotwire about it (it was listed as having a casino) and they gave me an option of being fully refunded if I checked out (leaving me to find a last minute hotel on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas) or to stay and they would credit me 25%.  I took the credit.  Then I used that credit to pay for my last night in Vegas, which I still had not decided on at that point.  Wins all over the place here!  Let’s take this luck to a casino!

I took the bus to Sam’s Town.  I wanted to use my Las Vegas Advisor $10 free play that I was supposed to use on some other day and did not.   When I went to get it loaded on my card, I discovered I am now Sapphire level at Boyd.  Oops, I did not mean to move up a level.  It just kind of happened.   Degenerate gambler strikes again!

I lost my $10 and then the free play.  And then I converted all my points into free play and lost that too.  Then I saw that the quarter Keno progressive was over $100k so I had to lose some more money trying for that too.  It was just one of those nights where everything hated me.  It was mutual.

I took the bus back to my hotel.  I almost got out at the Rainbow casino but decided to behave myself.

The next two days, I alternated between Rainbow, Eldorado and Emerald Island.  I won no money in these places.

But I did get to sing Ronnie James Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” so it was all good.

Emerald Island has a promotion where you sign up for a card, earn 50 points and you get a coupon book that includes both a free burger and a free skillet breakfast.   What was even kind of cooler was that I hit the 50 points and someone approached me on my machine to hand me the book.  I didn’t even have to notify them or go back to the player’s club.

I lost the skillet coupon before I got to use it.  The burger was great though.

I played a Keno game that was more like a carnival Keno game than I am used to (and I play Cleopatra Keno nonstop.)  The machine was kind of cool.  You can see how my screen is popped up, it does this when you insert the money.  So you can see better.

I ate at Rainbow’s coffee shop.  There was a limited menu as it was New Year’s Eve, which was fine by me.  I had a burger and it was fantastic.

Rainbow also has the best Cleopatra Keno pay table I have ever seen.   I play nine numbers always.  Usually the six number hit is worth 40, and the 7 number hit varies from 260 (Red Rock) to 320 (Four Queens) and 400 (lots of places, including Bellagio of all oddities.)

Of course, none of this matters if you do not hit the numbers.  Which I didn’t.  So…

Most of what I did for three days was lose my money very quickly, and watch Netflix.  I had planned to spend New Year’s Eve in my room watching Netflix, since I didn’t really want to be around people so much.  But being in Henderson for all these days was like being on a weirdo vacation.  I was in Las Vegas, but I wasn’t because I was in Henderson.  When I was at Hawthorn, I could not just go to a casino. It required getting on a bus.  It felt weird.  I could see the Strip fireworks from my hotel window though, so there was that.

I also stopped at my first Dotty’s casino.  These are all over the place in local neighborhoods.   They are small and have huge comfy office type chairs at their machines. I won $5 here but I did not see a TITO machine and assumed I had to go to the cashier (who also runs the store) and I didn’t want to bother her so I played it until I had zero.  Because degenerate.

When it came time to leave Henderson, I was more than ready to do so.

I feel bad about how short and boring this is so let’s talk about my bus ride to the Strip.  I take the BHX and transfer for the 202.  A woman sits next to me, turns to the guy next to her and compliments his beard.  Then she turns to me and compliments me on my glasses, and then asks if I like her glasses.  Sure.  She is now complimenting every person on the bus and asking for compliments in return.  Once everyone has received their compliments, she launches into her life story.  She has drank too much Dr. Pepper and is feeling way too hyper.  She loves playing at MGM Grand because her Chinese sign is a lion.  She offered every homeless man on the bus her phone number.  She even asked one where he was going with his luggage and he told her he was homeless and going to a shelter.  She tried to give him money and he would not take it.   This was a very nice person, although a bit crazy.

Then somehow she began talking about sex.  This was extremely awkward.  To say the least.  The homeless men on the bus really seemed to enjoy her though.  I really just wanted to get the hell off the bus already.  I always forget how far Boulder Highway is from the Strip.  In my mind, it is a walkable distance, but in reality, it is at least half an hour by vehicle.

Finally, I made it to Cromwell and am about to begin the Strip portion of my trip.

Gambling Day: -$600 (three days at $200/day)
Gambling Trip: +$80
Miscellaneous: (Dunkin Donuts, a trip to a dollar store, a trip to Smith’s Grocery for snacks for the room/toiletries, and cigarettes): $78.43
Comps used: $25 free play from my points at Sam’s Town
Freebies:  Burger at Emerald Island, breakfast for three days at Hawthorn Suites, $38.11 Hotwire credit for my hotel not having the advertised casino.

Here are the itineraries for two days.  I never had one for New Year’s Day since I figured I might spend it working on my blog (and then didn’t.)

Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Breakfast: 
Check into Hawthorn Suites
Lunch:
Dinner: Emerald Island Grill half off LVA
Earn 100 points Emerald Island free spin LVA
Jerry’s Nugget:New Member Rewards:
50 points – $5 Comp
100 points – Jerry’s Nugget T-shirt
250 points – $20 Comp
500 points – $40 Gift Card
1,000 points – $100 Free Play on Slots and Video Poker
Joker’s Wild 11x reels, 7x vp

Thursday, December 31, 2015
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner: Rainbow Bar and Grill
Silver Sevens slots 7x vp 3X
Suncoast 15x pennies, 11x slots, 7x vp