OUR FIRST POKER RUN (AND WE WERE THE WINNERS!)

(Above photo was taken in Arizona during our Route 66 Westward trip in July.)
It was the first time we participated in a Poker Run. The Run started at 10 on Saturday morning (October 2nd) from Creve Coeur Lake in Maryland Heights, Missouri. The event was a fundraising organized by someone who works with my husband. It was in memorial of his son, MV, who was a junior at Maryville University. MV was given full scholarship by the university. He was a promising baseball player and had a passion for cars, especially Mustangs (thus, we took the Mustang, instead of the T-bird, on the Poker Run). MV died last year during a hiking adventure. The proceed from the Run went to a scholarship fund in memorial of MV.

It was a clear but cold morning. There were a lot of people at the park, running, walking and a few rowing teams. We were assigned to Group #3. Each Group has 7 cars and everyone played 5-Card Stud. The first card is handed out during registration and one more card at each of the next four stops. The winner with the best hand would win 50% of the pot collected for each group.

The 2nd stop was the Pere Marquette Lodge in Grafton, Illinois. After getting the 2nd card, we stopped for lunch at a BBQ place in Alton, Illinois.

After lunch, we drove to FastLane Classic Car in St. Charles. This was the 3rd stop and we got one more card. After drooling over the cars, we took off to the 4th stop at Bentley St. Louis. We were “allowed” to walk around the showroom. There were signed that read "Please enjoy, but don't touch"! I never felt so poor in my life. The showroom was filled with Lamborghini, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and a $350,000 Maserati! A nice salesman told us that someone came in last week and bought three (3) of these fancy automobiles, must be someone from the Busch family!

The 5th and final stop was at Maryville University. The total run was approximately 6 hours to complete 125 miles but we had so much fun so it did not seem to be that long. To our surprise, we won the prize in our group for having the best hand - 3 of a kind. We decided to donate part of the prize to the fund. It was our first Poker Run but we enjoyed it so much that I said to my husband that not only we should participate again next year but I am also open to take part in other Poker Runs as well.

My husband said that just because we won our first Poke Run, I now have turned into a gambler. Well, “You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em".