Sometimes, you just gotta roll the dice.

We rolled the dice on the Shasta trip, with hopes of unearthing piles of rare records from the vaults of the “old guy who ran the radio station” estate sale. You just never know, and, the 400 miles between us and them didn’t matter one bit. So we split. “We” being Dale, Mark and I. Gary sat this one out.

We drove down late Thursday night, completely drunk on speculation. Lots of scenarios were playing through our heads. “Would other scavengers be coming as far as we did?” and “If the stuff is good, should be just make them an offer for the whole lot?” and “What’s the best strategy for digging through the most stuff, the quickest?” We put our heads together, and man, with each mile shaved off that distance, things got that much more heated.

So we pulled off to piss in Canyonville and there “just happened to be” a casino there, calling our names. You know, take a pee, play a couple quick hands, and get out quick, right? I headed straight for the roulette table and I’ll be damned if my second play didn’t hit “15 bucks on 34.” Heck yeah. 515 bucks, just like that. My number! The second hand! The next hand, I hit “5 bucks on 5” for another $175. I was way up, sweating and higher than hell on the fumes of the weird tonic that is “gambling’s dastardly ways.” Trouble, really. So I decided to cash out and found the boys. Dale was playing some slots, and Mark was playing a little Blackjack.

A couple minutes went by and Mark and I headed back to the roulette table. “I’ll just try a couple more hands, right? I’m way up.” So I tried my luck.

And just like hat, a couple hands later, I hit that motherfuckin’ 34 again, this time with 20 bucks on it. That’s 700 bucks, man! I quickly cashed out and we were on our way the hell out of that “den of sin.”

We punched in, tried our luck, hit it big, and then got the hell out. Just like that.

So we kept going down to Shasta, rolling into town around 2 in the a.m. The one horse town that it is was very, very quiet, and cold. You are pretty high up. We found the estate sale and camped out in the front. The doors opened at 7am and we’d be damned if we weren’t gonna be the first adventurers through those doors.

6:30am rolled around, eventually, and a kid from the estate sale came out and waved us in. Like sharks to the kill, we were in there, flipping through the stacks. Unfortunately, not a minute into it, we had a good feeling their wouldn’t be any serious record scores. But hey, that was alright. Once the records were scavenged, I headed out into the old man’s radio room to grab a bunch of amazing ham cards, manuals and transistors. I left with a hearty shoebox full of rescued treasures.

We got the hell out of Shasta and headed north, junking along the way in Ashland, Medford and Grant’s Pass. More treasures rescued here and there.

We pulled off in Eugene to have supper. On the way out, full and revitalized, we noticed an Obama campaign office. We quickly pulled over and I ran in to see if I could score a couple “Obama Hope” posters. No dice, but, the gal who was watching the joint said, “:Better yet, Obama is here in Eugene, speaking in 30 minutes.”

So cool. So we parked, hiked in, made it through security and listened to Mr. Obama tell it like it is.

I am so thankful I got to see him speak. As tired and mangy as I was, it breathed the most amazing wisp of air into my sails. I mean, here was the man who just might be the next president of these United States, only 200 yards away. A “junior Senator” with some real common sense, world class articulation and braveness.

I was very proud to be there with everyone. I hope he can turn the mess we’re in around. I hope.

So to sum this monster post up, there are just times when you have to roll the dice. We gambled on Canyonville’s casino, Shasta’s lone estate sale and Eugene’s supper options, and man, they all paid off.