I am not a gambler.

That's not to say I have NEVER gambled.  In the past I have risked small amounts of money on football games in office pool-type stuff and I have put coins into slot machines a couple of times.  As limited as they are, those gambling experiences have taught me a very valuable lesson about myself.  What was that lesson?  I learned that, when it comes to gambling, I am a BIG LOSER.

For me, the old saying "win a few, lose a few" is nothing but fallacy.  I only lose.  Lose, lose, lose.  The first time I was ever in a casino I bought a roll of ten $1 coins.  With high hopes, I took them over to a one-armed bandit that was tempting me with flashing lights and I proceeded to lose it all in ten pulls of the handle.  Ten dollars down the drain in about one minute.  It was a huge disappointment, particularly when I looked around and saw other people scooping up scads of coins spewing out of their machines.  I could not afford to lose ten dollars per minute back then and I STILL can't.

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At least with the football pool I got to enjoy a couple hours of extremely violent linebacker activity on TV before losing my ten dollars.

These days, I only bet on "sure things."  And one of the few "sure things" I know of in life is bicycle touring.  Traveling on a bike is fun.  It's way more fun than losing ten dollars per minute and, as I've explained extensively in my previous journals, my cycling philosophy is ALL about fun.

This year's fun will begin in Las Vegas, Nevada.  I'll be starting there because I found a one-way flight into that gambling Mecca for a very reasonable price of $67.  But I won't be gambling there;  I'm too cheap for that.  Nonetheless, I know from a couple of previous visits that there is no better place for people-watching--especially if you like seeing people in their most fake, pretentious, drunken, and ill-considered behaviors.  People mortgaging their houses to recoup losses in a poker game.  People cruising "the Strip" in rented Cadillac convertibles.  People vomiting just outside the entrance to the MGM Grand.  People wearing the latest "fashions" that they are much too old to be wearing.  People wearing hardly any clothing at all.  People studying the ads in local tabloids for "escort services."  People flaunting their wealth--whether they actually have it or not.  People acting in ways which they would never act back home in Texas, or Iowa, or Maine . . . or any foreign country . . . or any other planet.

Whatever.  The people watching will be fun for a day, but the REAL fun will begin when I start pedaling my bike into the desert.  I've already bought the ticket.  I can't wait to take the ride.