A three-day weekend at home is very difficult for me. It just doesn't feel like a holiday when we're in the same place as where we work as well. Up until Friday night, we had no "fun plans" to speak of...... While Marshall and Drake were at the gym, I went on a late afternoon walk and crafted up some potential options.
We landed on a little trip up to Blackhawk to check out the casinos with a trip up to ski on Monday in Winter Park (chosen over hot springs and National Western Stock Show rodeo). We had a leisurely morning on Sunday with a french toast and sausage breakfast and were on the road a little after 1:00.
Blackhawk and Central City are old mining towns where gambling was legalized in the 1990s. We walked around Central City first and checked out one of the casinos there where Drake quickly lost $5 in video poker. We were unable to check in to the hotel so we checked out all the casinos in this part of town - The Lodge, Bally's, Lady Luck, the Horseshoe and Monarch - before ending up back at our hotel, The Ameristar. It was fun to check out the different energy at each casino, sports book, etc. Considering this is one hour from our house, it is crazy to think I had not explored Blackhawk before.
As it happens in a casino, time flew by after we chilled in the hotel a bit. We checked out the table games, we played video poker with our free casino money, we sat the bar to get free drinks, we watched the Bears lose in overtime and just enjoyed the time together. We had Ramen for dinner and then headed over to the Lodge Casino to play $10 craps. I even got in on the (losing) action. Marshll and Drake were both up for a bit, but then the rolls just didn't happen.
Monday brought sleeping in for some and chilling at the pool with a book for me and hot tubbing for all. We got on the gondola around 1:00 and enjoyed decent snow given the recent snow showers. It was a couple hours of leisurely skiing and no lines and the drive back was manageable. Even though we were only gone a little over 24 hours, it felt like much more than that.
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| Main Street in Central City |
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| Lady Luck (the Casino Marshall worked at many years ago when it was Colorado Central Station |
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| our hotel and casino |
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| The bar at the Ameristar |
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| Marshall and Drake at the craps table |
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| The inside of the Ameristar |
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| dusting of snow overnight |
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| bluebird day! |
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| Drake and Marshall |
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| a fun getaway |
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