Sometimes, when your Mom is in her mid-eighties you may one day feel very spontaneous and decide to cross the continent and just show up in Scranton  unannounced for her birthday. If you continue the trip over the Susquehanna River and thru the technicolor woods you may just stumble on a cute little casino in Wilkes Barre Pa. the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs horse racing track.

It is a rather unassuming structure from the outside

I walked in, just me and my buddies Benny Franklin,and the Jackson twins, really on a sightseeing trip more than anything. The fall foliage on the trip down interstate 81 was not peaking yet and I needed some stimulation. The five dollar machines beckoned, and on the second spin, there she goes, a $240 pop. Hey dere...pretty durn good, haina? Ben dere jus five minutes.

Anyone with any sense at all would have run like a white-tail buck back to the car. Never shall you be able to rightfully accuse me of that! Nothing like a great buffet to settle the tummy after a little luck. The Timbers Buffet would rate about a half click between the Nugget and the the Bellagio buffet. They even had pierdogies. Really a pleasant surprise. Good thing I didn't go to the Ruth Chris' or the Wolfgang Puck restaurant  there or I might never have made it back to Grandma's house. Really nice place, really great food, a large non smoking area...I was almost in heaven.

I didn't want to give them back their wampum, so I played the penny multiline slots at max coin for two hours $2 to $4 a spin, must've hit a dozen or so little features. One machine, named Red Baron oughtta be painted black and white and renamed CA$H COW. Almost a thousand bucks up. Oh yeah, don't want to blow it now...anybody for a little 10 play Videopoker with a ho hum 97% paytable? What the hell... A hundred down, then two three four hundred and the deal is two to a royal plus a wild deuce. OUCH! Normally I'd just keep the deuce,  but today is a LUCKY day, everything I touch is loose as a Canadian goose. So I went for it .....THREE wild royals at $250 each. In with $140 out with $1900. Now I can afford to go to Vegas*

Tags: Vacation Wilkes Barre