Howdy,

I wanted to tell you all about my trip this weekend, but first I wanted to cover this as I've seen several posts about it to other people on this board and the CCGTCC, but never to me and since I would like people to read my posts and respond to them I will cover this.

I don't use my name, not really by thought, I just hardly every do online. opossum is one of several nick names I use online. My ID at ebay is opossum and my email is opossum@rocketmail.com just to name a few of the dozens of places I use it.

For the record, my name is K. David Marple CCGTCC member R-5644 and you can go there and read my bio. There are two and you can find them by following this link (http://www.ccgtcc.com/cgi-bin/webdata_members.pl?cgifunction=Search&Last%20Name=%5Em) or this one (http://www.ccgtcc.com/cgi-bin/mb/webbbs_config.pl?profile=k.+david+marple).

Thank you and now on to my trip report:

Chapter 1 - The Wait

Get up blah...blah...blah...leave 3 /12 hours late for the Oregon coast (Lincoln, City Oregon) blah...blah...blah...get to the room (Sea Horse) just in time to see the sun set Saturday night.

Take the dogs for a walk on the beach...rent a movie for our daughter (OLD ENOUGH TO STAY ALONE, just not home) wait and wait (2 hours) for wife to get ready to go. Leave for Chinook Winds at 0200, yes 0200!

Walk around and scope the place. They have a 3 table poker room, which is closed (big surprise), 2 roulette tables,2 craps tables, no baccrat and the normal table/slot games you would expect from a Native American Casino. Their website does not state how large the gaming floor is, but it isn't bad.

Since my whole reason for coming to the casino was to play poker, harvest chips and have fun I just watch my wife play BJ for a few mins and then run off in pursuit of stuff!

Chapter 2 - Newbie gets Busted!

I walk the place again checking tables and making sure I didn't miss any chip posibilities. Next I go to the cage and ask them about LE/C chips.

They say they have 2 in the cage and one on the floor (see scan below), so I buy 4 each (Commotion at the Ocean/ Celebrating 5 yrs) as this is my first time buying chips with the sole intention of not keeping all of them. $40 is a large investment to me and I still have to go find the one (Millennium) on the floor.

I go tell my wife what to keep an eye out for and we spot them in the dealers tray as their inserts are yellow and different from the pink, brown and blue house chip inserts. I wonder around more and then come back just in time for her to be down about $70. We leave the BJ table and wonder around for a few minutes more, before we come back to find her BJ dealer waiting for players, so we buy 4 chips from her rack and move on to the roulette wheel.

I ponder asking the players if I can buy a chip from each of them (3) but decide not to. I then think about buying in both my wife and I and getting two at one time, however I decided against that too and buy in myself. I ask for the bright orange chips as they stand out the most (gold hot stamp/Paulson).

I play for a few minutes, for the first time ever. I know the game, how to lose and what the vig is and that is the extent of my education on roulette. After about 5 minutes I place a final bet and watch it lose. I have 2 chips in my hand and put them in my pocket.

We head to the snack bar and almost make our order when I get a tap on the shoulder from a pit critter. He wants his 2 chips back. He's nice enough about it and all and I tell him I collect them. I even show him my 12 other chips in my pocket. No Roulette chips for me :(

We leave a few minutes later and that is that.

Chapter 3 - The Road Home

We leave for home the following evening at 2100. I haven't had the best weekend, so when my wife and daughter ask about a bathroom break and a snack I jump on it and say "Sure, I was thinking about Spirit Moutain." This is another Native American casino located in Grand Rhonde, Oregon, which is about 25 miles from our starting point.

We stop and I pick up more chips, but they have no LE/C's.

Epilog: As a chip collector I like Chinook Winds over Spirit Mountain and time will tell if my purchase of $5 C chips was a good idea. Chinook Winds did not have any Craps dice in the store or I would have bought some. They did however have cards, so I did get 2 pks of those.

The store closed 15 mins before we arrived at Spirit Mountain, but we will be back within 30 days as they gave us a $20 credit for a wedding anniversary present.

As a poker player I like the non-smoking poker rooms at both casinos and prefer the remote location of the poker room at Chinook winds, which keeps it further away from the general smoking area. The smooth purple felt of the Chinook Winds poker tables is very nice, however the larger poker room at Spirit Mountain was still going strong when we stopped by around 2215 whereas the 3 table poker room at Chinook Winds was having trouble keeping one table going at 1800.

Scan below shows these (L to R/T to B):
Old Spirit Mt. Design, New Spirit Mt. Design, Spirit Mt. New Design (#1), Spirit Mt. New Design (#2), Chinook Winds, Chinook Winds Commotion at the Ocean Comm, Chinook Winds Mill chip, Spirit Mt. New Design (#3), Chinook Winds, Chinook Winds Anniversary (front/back), close up of New Spirit Mt. Design (#3).

I did not notice the differences between S Mt. #1 and #2 untill I got home and saw the one had the words Grand Ronde...around the outer edge, the $1 was different as were the colors and mold! So much for being observant. Now, #3 has what I believe to be a security feature. If you look at the small scan bottom right you can just make out the back end of a wolf, which looks exactly like the wolf jumping over the Mt. This is reapeted across the face of the chip, this was just the best shot I could get.