Hairy legs are your only link to reality*

Last week I got invited to go to the horse races for $2....I had never been to horse races and $2 sounded like a good price for a new experience.

It took us a while to get out to Colonial Downs, we actually passed it the first time and saw a deer.  Our driver, Two Month Tyler (he's here for a two month internship), thought it would be nice to strike up a conversation with the deer.  The way the deer stared at Tyler almost convinced me he knew what was being said.

I must still be in my tourist mode from my Yankee trip because I had no qualms about whipping out my camera and photo documenting the experience.  When we got there we walked right up to what we thought was the track.  I'm going to be honest with you, we had a group of 10 and not one of us knew what was going on.  There were people on horses and from there we tried to figure things out.  Why didn't the horses have numbers? Why were the jockeys so old...and smoking?

When would the race begin? Why were people sitting so far away on the bleachers?  Eventually we figured out that on the huge board with a gazillion factoids, had one that showed how much longer until the next race.  There was the sound of a trumpet and then horses with numbers and young jockey's entered the track.  Then we waited another seven minutes or so before the actual race - which was not on the area we thought was the track - the track was on some grass further away. 

In all honesty - the race was really boring.  They took off and then we couldn't even really see them for a while.  Then they came back around and crossed the finish...donezo until the next race....20 minutes later.  I suppose if I was a gambling woman I wouldn't mind the 20 minute wait because it would give me time to place my bet, but I don't gamble.  We took pictures in the meantime...

The Zamboni of race tracks

Little known fact (could be well known) the gates are brought in for the start off and then removed.

Kami, Jessie, and Two Month Tyler

We finally figure out that part of that giant board showed the top four horses - nifty for when you can't see them

One girl in our group decided to give the whole experience a try.  But she didn't want to go in blindly.  She talked up strangers to find out what things were.  Within two races she was talking like she came to the races every week.  We tried to tell her that she may have a problem, but she said she could quit at any time and since people usually mean it when they say that ....we let it go.

She did win $2.50 and we did document it as much as we could on camera. 

The winning ticket

The winning horse

The payoff

So here's the math:

$2 (for her first bet that she lost)

$2 (for another bet that she tried something new and won)

$.10 (for something - I can't remember what she called it)

$.50 (for something else I can't remember)

Total spent: $4.60

Total won: $2.50

Profit for Nicole: -$2.10

See kids - Gambling doesn't pay.

Here's what I learned:

1. Horse races are more fun when you pick a horse you want to win
2. They are even more fun when your friend has put down money on a horse
3. Someone needs to babysit Nicole if we ever go again (every time I turned around she was talking to another stranger)
4. Horse races are like high school football games - go with a group of friends if you really want to have fun - cause the action on the field won't be that good.

It didn't take much for Two Month Tyler to get us to leave the races.  The moment he mentioned getting ice cream I was on board.  So we left and piled into the cars, unsure of where there was an ice cream joint on the way back to our meeting place.  But as we came out onto one of the main roads we spotted a Dairy Queen.  Somehow the second car, which was behind us, totally passed the DQ.  Jeremy (another intern) asked someone with a smart phone to send him our location.  None of us knew how to do that.  So I took a picture of the Dairy Queen and sent it to Kami as a joke:

They eventually found us and showed us how to do it - it's through Google Maps or something like that...the things these young whippersnappers teach me about my phone - craziness. 



It puts it in a text and you can send them where you are and they can use Google Maps to get directions.

I got a Sundae with marshmallow and peanut butter (in case you are interested) - my recommendation - don't get the marshmallow.  Leave it as peanut butter and it will not disappoint.