Day in the Poconos

Second day of my January outing alone.  Kalahari resort was awesome, its water park not.  My watch tracker counted 13000 steps, a world record for me personally, even with the watch sitting in my jeans pocket while at the water park.  Much of this came from round trips to the parking lot.  First I had to get my bearings in the immense resort.  Then retrieve my tote for the water park, which needed another round trip to the car, as they would not complete my registration without my driver's license and credit card which I had placed in the glove compartment for safe keeping.  Then I realized that I had my good glasses, when I wanted my previous prescription in case of loss or damage on the attractions.  So another round trip.  At least by now I knew the corridor system to minimize time outdoors in the chill.  Eventually admitted, changed, found a home for my tote bag with its contents, but did not do a great job of linking it to nearby landmarks, which left me for a while searching endlessly for the chair near somebody else's rented cabana where I had plopped all my stuff.  Mostly a disappointing afternoon, not at all worth what they charged.  For the Medicare clientele I found a Lazy River, two hot tubs, one with a pleasant outdoor extension, and a brief immersion in their wave pool which fell short of the Atlantic it tried to replicate or other water parks that replicated the ocean more closely.  I left about an hour earlier than planned.  Made it to the hotel.  

The best supper option seemed to be the casino buffet.  As travel expanded in the last half of the twentieth century, the Catskills basically died as a resort destination but the Poconos did a better job at capturing their niche.  The Orthodox Jews were well represented at both the Kalahari Resort and at the Camelback Resort I had gone to on a previous year's outing.  It's a bit closer to Lakewood and the Metro NY population centers than Grossingers was.  There is a single highway that crosses NJs east west dimension that makes car or charter bus travel easy.  And the people seemed pretty prosperous, likely coming here as a short break while still affording themselves something more elaborate while camp takes care of their reasonable number of kids in the summer. Some skiing is nearby, good for day trips from NY, Philly, and probably Baltimore.  And there are casinos, including one not far from my hotel, largely devoid of those young Orthodox Jewish families.

There's probably a dedicated casino culture, now that they have established themselves regionally.  I have only been to the two near me once each, one attracted by the cheap buffet, the other more out of curiosity.  This buffet, on Senior Discount Night, was definitely a best buy for supper.  And if hungry enough, it would be even without the discount.  It is also part of a very large hotel complex.  The parking lot had a fair number of cars, but unlike the Kalahari Resort, not so many as to create a long walk from car to entertainment.  Took off my Phillies cap as their rules require, at least to go past the checkpoint, but put it back on when it became obvious that baseball caps were common and accepted attire.  Offered my ID but the attendant just waved me through.  Followed signs to the buffet, passing massive amounts of mostly empty electronic slots with garish displays.  They had a Chinese game section, but it looked mostly like the other slots.  If there were dice and roulette gambling, they were lost in the glitter.  Seems something of a public waste to have this as the form in which creativity is expressed, to say nothing of America's technical dominance of electronics, mathematics, engineering, business planning, the very things that make America the place people want to be.  And not that many people at the machines.

By the end of supper, a no waste supper that left me with little desire for dessert, I waddled off.  Between the walking, water immersion, immediately completed overeating, I did not feel my best.  I selected a seat in front of a slot machine with a fully unoccupied row.  Comfortable high-backed vinyl swivel seat, and let my Senior Discount body readjust for a few minutes before heading to the short but cold walk back to my car, protected by having the good sense to wear my parka. 

Since my hotel is on a divided highway, on the wrong side of the divider which only allows access to the main road in one direction, the Waze App took me in a circuitous route through neighborhoods largely obscured by the dark.  On the return, fewer turns were needed, really only three once past the casino complex itself.  A rather large deer crossed in front of my car while I stopped in anticipation of the only difficult turn on the way back.  Otherwise, main roads and follow signs.

While not the best of days, as the following day's achiness and slight despondence are probably a direct consequence, it was different from what I would have been doing at home instead.