Yesterday afternoon we decided to take a short break from our current concerns and took the 45 minute drive to Mount Airy Lodge/Casino/Resort. Ok, those of you who know us best are thinking "well, there is nothing strange about that" & you'd be right of course, but wait...
The drive was pleasant as usual, traveling over the mountains on our trip North; however, we did notice about half the way there that nearly everyone coming South was driving with their lights on. We guessed that we'd encounter some rain somewhere up the road and indeed the sprinkles started a short time later and there were some moderate showers by the time we arrived in the Mount Airy parking lot. We darted between the drops as best we could and spent a couple hours on the casino floor when suddenly the place went black...nothing but a few emergency lights to be seen here and there. The darkness was only momentary, and everything seemed to return to normal; however, in a short while we noticed it was beginning to get warmer and within an hour or so it was getting quite warm, not quite to the point of hot, but uncomfortable. We concluded that the place was now running on generators, probably as a result of a lightning strike in the area.
Since we had not yet had anything to eat to this point in the day (now about 7pm), we decided to go toward one of the several available eating establishments only to find that they were all shut down due to the shortage of power (naturally, the available generated power was being directed toward keeping the casino running). We returned to the casino and within about another hour we were really getting uncomfortably warm and headed to a corner of the building where we knew there were doors nearby and concluded if things were no better there, we'd just call it a day. In one of our favorite spots, the temperature was indeed better and we continued playing. Deb was in the middle of a bonus round of 30 free spins when suddenly the place went dark again - this time for a much longer period.
Eventually, the lights came up again and we waited as machines were rebooted, etc. Meanwhile, we began to hear stories that only two of the four generators were working and almost nothing was running at this point except the casino. People staying in the hotel could not get to their rooms (no elevators) and even if they were to take the stairs, the electronic door locks on the rooms were not working (nor were such things as ATM's, change machines, escalators, refrigerators, etc.). We decided to 'cash out' our winnings and soon everything went black once more. Once again, after about 10 minutes or so, lights came back, machines rebooted; however, this time we heard there was only one generator running.
Ok, now here's the "Very Strange" part of the evening. They actually CLOSED the casino. Now for those of you that gamble to any extent, you know that this just NEVER happens, but we figured that they finally decided that if they lost the last unit, they'd have a bigger mess on their hands than they would want to deal with - no matter how much money was hanging in the balance.
