Day 4
Tuesday August 18, 2020
I was up really early this morning at 4:30am. I had a quick breakfast and packed up the rest of my things and headed out.

The reason I was up so early was so I could get to the airport for a flight. No, I'm not heading home, I'm heading to Reno and Lake Tahoe.

On the way to the airport I gassed up the car and headed to the rental car facility to return the car. The return went well and I was on my way to the shuttle back to the airport.

Today's flight in on Southwest. I snagged a great deal when they were running a sale back in June for $39 one way. I used some of my banked up Southwest points to cover the fare. I only had to pay the security tax. Checking in went well. Next up, security. It was pretty good too.

I found my gate and waited for them to start boarding. When I checked in yesterday I got boarding position A38. I didn't bother buying early bird check in because the flight is only a little over an hour and Southwest has blocked middle seats. When I boarded I took a window seat in the back of the plane. There are only about 60 people on this flight so everyone got their own row.

This is flight 711 non stop to Reno scheduled for 1 hour and 20 minutes. An announcement was made that said the flight was only going to take 52 minutes. This flight is nothing compared to what I normally do flying from the east coast. In what seemed like just a few minutes were were landing. We landed at 8:17am in the roughest landing I've ever had as the pilot slammed the plane down. After a taxi to the gate I was off the plane and on my way to baggage claim. It was already there waiting for me and the next move was to the rental car counter.

Today's rental is with Budget again. They came in with the best price using a discount code and a coupon. Rental car rates up here were quite a bit higher than I normally like to pay but what can you do. I checked every day hoping the rates would go down. I originally booked an intermediate SUV for a base price of $164 and all in for $277. On August 9th the rates dropped a bit and I rebooked for $152 base and $261 all in.

The only reason I booked such a large vehicle is because the smaller cars were just cheap enough to not be able to use the coupon. Booking the larger car with a slightly higher price allowed me to use the $25 coupon and brought the price down lower than the smaller cars.

They assigned me a new Mazda CX5 with just 1000 miles on it. I loaded up, gave the car a once over and I was on my way to Lake Tahoe. I made a quick stop at 99¢ Only and then McDonald's.

I arrived at Harvey's where I'd be spending the next 3 days. I booked this online and got all 3 nights comped in a mountain Junior Suite. My host put in a request for something better but wouldn't guarantee it. We'll see what happens at check in.

It was a little early but I decided to see if I could check in. The room wasn't ready. That meant it was time to gamble.

I went over to Harrah's and played 38 hands on 50 play for quarters. Streaky for sure but I wanted to get a good amount of action in. I was getting lots of dealt winners to keep alive and then in a Jack-Ten hold popped a royal flush on line 37 for $1000. Now I know better with 50 play, this is like hitting a quad on single line. I got good play but eventually ground down to even. I had to reload but immediately a few dealt straight, flushes and a full house got my meter back up. Up and down from there. Down to about the last 2k in action I was planning and the typical bleed happened. A dealt straight and three of a kinds that gave me a few more quads kept me above water. I had done 50k and was up $93.75. I'll take it.

Next up I took a walk through the other casinos in the area and played some penny games. Had a few nice hits and a few bonus rounds that were quite impressive.

I came back to Harvey's and was able to check in now. I was given room 1169 in the Mountain Tower. This room has a king bed with nightstands in the bedroom area. The living room area has a sofa (sleeper), coffee table, dresser, TV, fridge, dining table and chairs and wet bar area that's useless. The bathroom is fairly small with a shower/(jetted) tub combo, toilet room and vanity. There is also a TV on the vanity. It has a view of the lake and California.

I got everything to the room and settled in and took a short break.

After the break, the first thing I did was took a walk over to the Hard Rock. They've been running an online game where you earn points that can be spent on food vouchers, free play vouchers or hotel discounts. I of course took the $25 free play option. I also had $10 free play from a mailer. There isn't really any good VP in this place so I opted to run it through slots turning it into $30 cash.

For a late dinner I went to Joe's here at Harvey's (formerly Straw Hat). I tried the blue cheese burger with tots. Was pretty good but overcooked. While I was here I watched the Golden Knights game. They came from behind to beat Chicago, win the series and move on to the next round of the playoffs.

After dinner I ran my $65 free play through 8 lines of quarter jacks and turned it into $43.

It was still fairly early but it had been a long day at this point so I cam up here to the room and watched TV for a while and then went to bed.

Total coin in for the day $50,075
Total win/loss for the day + $467
Total Comps for the day $292