I stashed my sleeping bag and day pack in the desert and walked down to Harrah's. Laughlin had machines and I wanted to be on those machines before the day was though. I asked if he could drop me off in Laughlin. I stuck my thumb out.Īfter a while a man in a van pulled over. I had about a half pouch of tobacco left. I counted up the change in my pocket, a whopping 99 cents left to my name. The next morning I got up, went to the convenience store, took a whore bath in the restroom, then bought a cup of coffee. I spent the night in my sleeeping bag by the on ramp to the freeway. At Bakersfield I hit Hwy 58 and got dropped off at Tehachapi Pass. I was almost broke and on my way back to Las Vegas where I could at least credit hustle the machines.
The story starts when I was thumbing down Hwy 99 in California in Oct, 1996. The only 3 nights a year I couldn't get comped was the last weekend of April, Biker Weekend. That meant I could get 362 room nights, along with the meals, comped every year. In the forums I called the strategy Laughlin RFB 362. It was a thing that started out slowly but built up over time to where I was getting a totally free ride in Laughlin. I worked room and meal comp heavily in Laughlin over about a five year period, from Oct, 1996 until May 2002.
