A Vacation At the Casinos

By Linda Kaye


On our wedding trip to Las Vegas, Vanessa had an evening out at the Mirage Hotel and Casino, which is probably the second most spectacular place in LV. It was such a success that we had planned a trip to LV this month for Vanessa; the tax man was brutal to us and since we were unable to get the hotel rooms we wanted, we decided to head East to Tunica.

The trip started with loading the van up with Vanessa´s clothes (we´d been ordering all kinds of things for weeks, as well as visiting the outlet stores) and other items necessary for a "girl" to take a trip. It should be noted that we took no male clothes whatsoever; Vanessa was Vanessa for the entire trip. Off we set, Sunday morning, for the 8 hour trip east. Three miles from the apartment, a back tire on the van blew out on the interstate. We pulled the van over, in the middle of nowhere, and got out to view the damage. Perhaps it was Vanessa´s derriere (she was bending over) that caused a young Hispanic man to stop to offer aid; however, I thought it best to thank him and send him on his way; we could manage. We ended up limping the van back to the apartment and shifting all the luggage to our truck, and off we went again. Fortunately, that was the only mishap we had on the trip.

On I-40, bathroom issues reared their ugly head. We couldn't find any "one-holer" gas stations and it seemed as though all the rest stops were filled with little old ladies. Finally, Vanessa could stand no more, and said the heck with it, so we pulled into a rest stop just over the Arkansas border. She headed off to the ladies room, and had no trouble whatsoever. It was so successful, that she chose to do the same on the way home, too. The key was to not go into a crowded ladies room; rather, wait until some of the crowd cleared out.

Our reservations were at the LadyLuck Hotel and Casino, which is about 50 miles south of Memphis. We chose this place because we got a special rate of $49 a night for a mini-suite that included a Jacuzzi for two in the room. The hotel was beautiful, and the management made very sure that it was kept secure and quiet against the hullabaloo of the casino. On the negative side, you had to push your way through the casino to get to the hotel portion, and also, of all the casinos we visited, the LadyLuck was the poorest, loudest and most uncomfortable. On the plus side, beside the room, the food was very good - we ate at the buffet several times and in the Riverview Cafe.

Although it was late, Vanessa and I didn´t care for the casino, so she suggested we head north on Hwy. 61 to the other casinos. It was about a 30 minute drive in the very dark farm country of Northern Mississippi. We made a wrong turn (naturally) and ended up on an even darker farm road, but eventually found the bright lights of Tunica and Casino Row. We ended up at Sam´s Town, which has a huge hotel, lots of gaming tables and plenty of slot machines. We had no trouble whatsoever, and no one paid the least attention to Vanessa. The casino offers complimentary drinks to those who are gambling, (LadyLuck does not) so we had a couple of glasses of wine and played the 5 cent slots, as well as just looking around. We headed back the 20 miles to the LadyLuck around midnight.

The Jacuzzi for two was terrific - and it was only the "call of the slots" which dragged us out of it the next day. Vanessa dolled up and we headed to the buffet for lunch, where the waitress (a middle-aged black woman) was very gracious to Vanessa and went out of her way to make her feel welcome. From there, we headed back up to Tunica to check out the other casinos. The first one we came to was Fitzgerald´s, which has an Irish theme. There is a large hotel under construction, which should open in August. From the moment we walked in, we felt nothing but friendliness from the management and staff. We found the 5 cent slots and immediately met Mary, one of the change ladies. She, also, is a middle-aged black woman, and she took to us immediately. She made it a point to get the cocktail waitress for us, chatted for several minutes, obviously very intrigued by Vanessa and over the next few hours, came back on several occasions to talk. She was a delight. She told us her daughter worked at the buffet at Sam´s Town. The cocktail waitress was also as kind as she could be, and very interested in Vanessa. Both ladies just loved Vanessa´s jewelry. After several hours, we decided to head over to Sam´s Town, and once again, the bathroom issue raised its head. Vanessa decided to tackle the ladies room at Fitzgeralds, and although the three women janitors did double takes, she had no problem at all.

At Sam´s Town, we chose to eat in the buffet and had a very good meal. When Vanessa went through the buffet, she asked to see Mary´s daughter, who seemed rather surprised, but nonetheless, was very friendly. I got up to go to the ladies room, and while Vanessa stayed at our table, a lady came over from a nearby table and said, "Mam, my friend and I just love your hair! It´s just lovely." Well, Vanessa had on a shoulder length, dark brown wig, which had fallen into a natural state, and it did look pretty good. She told the lady that it was a wig, and she seemed genuinely surprised. They chatted a few moments and the lady went back to her table. When she and her companion got up to leave, they both waved at Vanessa as they left.

We played the slots again, and while I worked hard at a particularly good machine, Vanessa struck up a conversation with a little old lady from Illinois, who was on a tour with her even older boyfriend. This lady, Vroni, chatted away for a couple of hours, never once blinking an eye at Vanessa - she got our names, confided much about her life, allowed Vanessa to assist her with her slot card and to be more comfortable, and when the boyfriend came up, introduced us both to him. It was a most successful evening for Vanessa (and me, for I won a bunch of nickels and hoarded them all the way back to the hotel.)

On Tuesday, we decided to check out the other casinos. We drove up to Bally´s, which is done in a "farm" decor, but decided to go over to the Sheraton, which has a very intriguing outer decor. Inside, though, it was awful. It was wall-to-wall tour bus folks - we couldn´t get near any of the slots, and the noise was incredible. We left very quickly, and walked next door to the Horshoe. It really had no personality at all, and poor slots, so we walked over to Circus Circus, which was a vast place, and nearly empty. We found some good slots upstairs and played awhile, and then decided to head back over to Fitzgerald´s, where once again, we were warmly welcomed by Mary and the cocktail waitress. We stayed, feeling very much at home, for a couple of hours. As Vanessa was waiting for me to come out of the ladies room, she heard someone calling, "Vanessa, Vanessa," and there was Mary., who hugged Vanessa´s neck and told her how much she´d enjoyed having us at the casino. Vanessa gave her our names and number and told her to look us up if she was ever through Oklahoma City.

We headed from there to the Hollywood Casino, where I had a "Screen Test" card from last year. I´d received a flyer from them several weeks ago which gave us $10 in coin for the slots, a dinner for two at the Epic Buffet, and $10 match play if we played one of the table games We got our $10 in coin, two cocktails each and a $20 dinner for free! The buffet was excellent - when you all are there, try the Hickory Smoked Prime Rib - it is wonderful!

We walked next door to Harrah´s Mardi Gra, which is newly opened and it seemed to have a lot of personality, but we couldn´t find the slots we wanted, so we headed back over to Sam´s Town and stayed until about 11 PM.

On Wednesday, we had to check out and we decided to try the Riverview Cafe for lunch before we left. The waitress was a very gracious person who treated Vanessa as a lady, calling her "mam" and chatting away with us. We had the $4.95 prime rib, (20% off coupon on top of that, plus we each had a coupon for a free glass of wine), so we had two prime rib dinners, two glasses of wine and spent a grand total of $10.60. All in all, it was a great trip. Vanessa was treated graciously and with interest everywhere we went. We had feared that rural Mississippi would be a mixture of racism and Redneck attitudes, but instead, we found that if the crossdresser acts as though nothing is different, with dignity and class, no one cares. We made friends and felt that we left a good impression of transgenderism wherever we went.

Think about going soon, we can guarantee that you´ll have a great time!

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