Day 6 - Manson to Spokane

My final day chasing casino chips in Washington state before moving east through Idaho and into Montana tomorrow. I started by going to Starbucks for breakfast and to use their Wi-Fi to put up the blog.

Following that I drove around to the other side of Lake Chelan to see the township on the side of the lake. It is the side with more commercial accommodation hotels and all the rental stores for water sports. From there I had to back track up Highway 97 to get back to Highway 20 at Okanogan.

Along this area is a great vista from the valley below with the river on one side and mountainside on the other. Even thought that is what I saw for most of the day yesterday, then it was narrow valleys between steep mountain slopes where today was a lot more open.

On the way up there I passed more apple orchards and in the town of Pateros was a large plant for packaging and distribution.

I pulled in to fill up with petrol. I usually pay cash for the petrol as my credit cards do not work at the pumps but now with the USA catching up with the chip technology for the cards you can now use them. This saves you having to go into the counter, leave money with them, going back to fill the tank and then having to go back to the counter and get any change if there was more money left over.

From there I travelled for about half an hour to the town of Omak to the 12 Tribes Casino and Hotel. The casino is very new and high on the hill outside of the town. By then the day had turned into a scorcher. So after the casino I stopped in the shade of a tree in the Walmart carpark and had some lunch that I had packaged from yesterday and put in the cooler in the back of the van on ice.

I travelled further north on the 20 up to Tonasket before turning right to follow the highway across through two more state forests. Like the day before over on the west coast I was again very close to the Canadian border. Tonasket is only 22 miles south of the border. The road east again crossed another couple of mountain ranges along very windy roads.

At Kettle Falls the road again turns south and through an area of forestry plantations. There were a lot of logging trucks on the road and that made the travelling slow whilst going up the mountains.

I was travelling south to get to the Chewelah Casino to pick up the $5 chips. I was able to get them and win a bit extra whilst I was there. I came out of the casino about 4.30 in the afternoon and the temperature was 98f.

I was only 44 miles from Spokane at this time where I had booked a room for the night. Unfortunately  I still had one more stop before then that was going to take me away from Spokane and make the total about 100 miles to get there.

I had to go to the Two Rivers Casino in Miles which is on the Franklin D Roosevelt Lake and again a tourist area for boating enthusiasts. I went to the players club counter to get a Players Card to add to the collection. I have to provide photo ID to get the card issued and mostly can use my drivers license and other than in Vegas it is normally the first time the service assistant has seen a Aussie drivers license.

the New South Wales one has a Waratah flower on it and the license is normally passed around for all behind the counter to see and they all say how pretty the flower is. This happened again here and the lady actually called other people from in the back office out to look at the license. Unfortunately that does not get additional help for me with the bonuses they provide when first getting the card.

I then walked into the casino area and noticed the table games were not being used.  I spoke to the person at the cashier counter and asked could I get a $5 chip from the casino. He told me that they do not have table games on a Monday and the chips  are locked away in a safe while not in use and it cannot be opened while the games are not being played.

So after all that I did not get a chip from that casino. This has only happened to me once before in Searchlight Nevada. There they only have table games on Thursday till Saturday and I have never been there on those days on the four times I have been through the town.

So from there I looked around the lake area quickly.

Then I finally drove into Spokane and booked into the hotel. There is one more casino in Spokane to go to tonight and I placed all my gear into the room and did some repackaging before heading off to the Northern Quest Casino to get the chips. Whilst there I got some dinner and checked out the Olympics on the big screen televisions. Of course there is no coverage of the Aussies so I am relying on the internet to follow as best I can.  

Todays chips