Boots & Bikes 2009

On Saturday Rick and I were signed up to do a poker run hosted by the Stillwater Professional Firefighters. What is a poker run? Usually, it's motorcycles or hot rods and everyone leaves from a designated spot, travels to five stops (often bars or restaurants,) drawing a card at each stop. At the end, your poker hand is tallied and the winning hand wins a prize and the lowest hand wins a prize. Depending on who is hosting, there might be other prizes as well. This was my first poker run and I was quite excited!

We left the house at 8am and had breakfast at a popular diner. I don't often eat breakfast out so that was a treat. By 9:30 we met up with several friends at a local motorcycle shop and checked ourselves in. We both got t-shirts, red ones, logo shown below. I had slathered on SPF 50 sunscreen before we left the house but I was nervous so I did some more! It was probably 10 before we got everyone in our group situated and ready to go and off we went! Our first stop was a little town called Mulhall. We parked the bike and went to the bar to draw our first card. I drew a 5 of spades...crap! We had a beer; I know, beer and it wasn't even 11 am but it was already getting hot outside! More sunscreen. On to the next stop at a bar in Perry. Another beer and I drew a 9 of hearts. Yay. My hand wasn't looking favorable! Our third stop was in Pawnee and we just quick went into the bar and drew our cards...mine was a Queen, I forget what suit. And more sunscreen.

We wanted to hurry on to the fourth stop in Cushing, for lunch. The stop was at a favorite Mexican restaurant, Rodolpho's. Oh, heaven! Tecate with salt & lime, enchiladas and their to-die-for homemade flour tortillas! I drew another Queen there. Ooo, a pair! The last stop was back in Stillwater (Where the bank thermometer read 95, surely it was hotter than that?) at the famous Eskimo Joe's. We were rather early so we went inside to enjoy the air conditioning and yet another beer since they weren't drawing cards until after three. Lots of bikes were trickling in and we chatted and watched. I'm terribly sorry but I forgot the camera that day! They finally formed up to draw cards and I drew another Queen! Holy smokes!

By this time in a poker run you can usually tell about where you stand. If you only have a poor hand you can call it a day if you're tired and ready to leave. With three Queens in my hand we thought I had a pretty good chance of winning. We had tickets to the Talons/Yard Dawgz game in Oklahoma City at 7pm and we were going to cut it close! But with three Queens we couldn't just leave.

The last-bike-in deadline was 4:30 and we'd been watching them tally hands. Finally, finally it was getting close to announce the winners. Rick spoke to a former co-worker who is now a firefighter and chatted him up to go peek at the chances for us. He returned and reported I was tied for first! OMG! Last call for check-in and they started announcing winners. The winning hand was three Queens/Ace high...I was second place! We hadn't expected a runner-up prize but they called my name with three Queens/Nine high. And cows-in-the-corn, I won $200! How awesomely cool is that? One of our friends won the prize for lowest hand, $100. We also had tickets for door prizes and won a leather bag and a pirate skull cap. What a great time that was!

We zoomed back home by 5pm and dashed into the shower...we were pretty rank after spending all day in the heat and drinking beer and wearing ten layers of sunscreen! I don't remember ever showering so fast before but we were pressed for time! Our beloved Talons were playing our hated-arch-rivals the Yard Dawgz in less than two hours! But we made it in time. The Talons won easily and we had a good time. So far, this season, we've only lost one game. There are some pretty tough games coming up though.

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Wow, what a day. Rick and I were both really tired on Sunday. So much excitement! Last night I told him I think we needed a weekend after our weekend, just to recover! In fact, I think I'm still tired! Good grief, I won $200! I still can't believe it! Do you know how much stash I could buy with $200??? Oh, yes. Whoops! of course you do!

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We are going to Texas near the end of this week, for Rick's family reunion. If you don't see me around, chatting up your blogs, I'm just busy at the beach. I'll try to remember that darn camera too!

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Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox