THE WANDERERS #79 THE GREAT POKER RUN - Dirtbike at Off-Road.com

It was almost noon near the end of summer and Barstow, California, was just ten minutes down the road. Heat waves danced off the near-boiling pavement and distorted vision in the distance. The desert off to the side of the big Interstate highway was brown and dry. Even though it had been a wet spring in the area, a solid four months of intense heat had pounded the desert mercilessly.

Emma hit the LED readout panel on the dash and a red number came up, which indicated the outside temperature. The glaring over-sized readout said 123 degrees! Emma punched another button, and this one gave the temperature inside The Whale. Hmmm. This one read a comfortable 76 degrees. It was a good thing The Whale had two heavy-duty air conditioners.

Emma picked up the flyer on the dash and read it again. "Carl? Are you sure you want to go this event? After all, it's being held in Baker, which is one of the hottest spots in the US most of the time. And this is only Barstow, which is above sea level. Baker is below sea level, according to the map. It's gonna be a zillion degrees there."

Carl hit the button and the drivers' side window rolled down. A wall of heat immediately blasted in. Carl spit a big, brown glob of chew at a speed limit sign, and nailed it in the upper right hand corner. When the window slid up again, it took the twin air conditioners a few minutes to cool the interior down again.

Carl mopped his brow with the back of his hand. "Whew! It sure is hot out there. But I wouldn't worry none about things. After all, the event we're goin' to is just a poker run, and we can just keep the air conditioners on if it stays hot."

"Naw. Basically what it you do is drive all over a prescribed route, and every time you get to a checkpoint, you get to draw a playing card from a box of cards. The best hand wins the prize. There's all kinds of prizes, but the one I want is that $2500 chunk of money!"

"Gosh, it sounds exciting! Do both of us get to play? I mean do we both get poker hands?"

Carl gave Emma a hard look. "Hey, woman! The entry fee is a stiff seventy-five bucks. You want to enter, well then, you'll have to use your own money. I ain't sponsorin' nobody."

Emma protested meekly. "Carl, you know my allowance is only five dollars a week. Why, I'd have to spend ... let me see ... hmmm ... 15 weeks worth of allowance! That'll put a big dent in my fun money."

Carl let out an evil grin. "Listen, if you want to play the game, you got to pay to play. That's just how it is."

Emma went back to the kitchen area of The Whale, extracted a cookie jar from a top shelf, fished in the jar for a while, and extricated a wad of five dollar bills wrapped up in a rubber band. Then she slowly counted out the money on the center console. "Sixty-five, seventy and seventy-five. There. Now I'm going to sign up."

* * *

The drive into Baker on Interstate 15 drove the temperature even higher. When they arrived in Baker in the afternoon, it was obvious the day was a real cooker. Carl pulled off the ramp and drove through the narrow two-lane road that dissected the center of town. Up ahead, a local land mark loomed. "Lookit that, Emma! That's the worlds largest thermometer! It must be a hunnert feet tall!"

Emma shaded her eyes and peered up at the huge thermometer built alongside the road. And then she did a double-take when she saw the temperature: 129 degrees!

After gassing up, they found a small over-priced motel and checked in. The pathetic room air conditioner roared and strained mightily, but all it could do was take some of the edge off the blistering heat.

Carl figured it would cool off later, so they hit a local restaurant and pigged out. At 9:00 o'clock that night, the temperature in beautiful downtown Baker was 108 degrees.

* * *

The next morning, Carl and Emma located the gas station being used as a sign-up area. A local 4-wheel drive club was putting on the poker run, with profits going to charity. The turn-out was big, and several hundred people signed up. Route maps were handed out and drivers were started off one every 30 seconds.

Carl checked the map out. It looked like an interesting run, with sections of the Old Mojave Road thrown it, as well as a trip around Calico Ghost Town. The course then wandered down to the desert floor - well below sea level - and criss-crossed the winding back road 127 that headed toward the Nevada state line. The route covered about 200 miles, most of it off-road on graded or unimproved two-tracks. Some gnarly cross-grain was thrown in, so Carl spent a few minutes lashing everything down with bungee cords and tie-down straps. No sense having a coffee pot fly out of a cupboard and whack you in the back of the head in a rough section.

At 8:07, the Whale left the line and headed west on a beat up fire-road that ran parallel to Interstate 15. At Razor Road, the first stop at a Chevron station, Carl drew a card and was pleased to see that he had a king. Emma reached in the box and drew a two.

The second check was on a gravel-covered road on the top of a hill north of Calico Ghost Town. Carl drew another king and gave out a big grin. Emma drew a five, and frowned.

The third stop was at Tecopa, way back near the Nevada border. Carl drew a queen and Emma drew a six. When Carl started The Whale back up to head for checkpoint four, a loud whining noise came from, under the hood and stinky smoke started filling the cab of the Suburban.

Carl popped the hood to check the problem, and let out a loud groan. "Oh, jeez! The air conditioner compressor just went up in smoke and all the wires around it are melted!"

Emma peered over Carl's shoulder. "Can you fix it?"

Carl looked disgusted. "Nope. All I can do is snip the wires, tape 'em up out of the way and run without the air conditioner until we can get it to a shop."

Fifteen minutes later, they were under way again, but now the windows in The Whale were all down in a vain attempt to cool things down. By mid-day, the heat reached blistering ranges and Carl and Emma were forced to drape wet towels over their heads and shoulders to cool off.

At the fourth check, Carl let out a loud whoop when he drew a third king, while Emma looked more than a little glum as she drew a three. Carl looked at her cards. "Well, it ain't all that bad. If you get a four, you'll have a small straight. Lottsa luck."

At the final check at Mountain Pass, Carl nearly went nuts as he drew another queen. This gave him a full house. Emma fumbled around in the cardboard box for a long time, hoping for a four. But instead, she drew an ace.

They drove back to Baker, with Carl feeling real good about things. By 6:00 o'clock, everyone was in and the checking of the hands started. For a while it looked like Carl's full house would hold up for the $2500 prize, but somebody else had a full house with aces over tens. Still, Carl managed to get the consolation second prize of $500.

Just about the time Carl was ready to walk away, money in hand, the announcer picked up the microphone. "Let's not forget about that super-duper low-ball prize, folks."

Emma was puzzled. "What's a low-ball, Carl?"

"Well, that's the exact opposite of a good poker hand. It's a variation of the game where the worst hand wins."

The announcer checked out a few hands. "So far, the best low-ball hand is a 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 2. Anybody got that beat?"

Emma spread her cards and studied them. There it was: 6 - 5 - 3 - 2 - ace! She raised her hand timidly. "Uhh, is this any good?"

The announcer checked it out. "Wow! The little lady has a seriously good low-ball hand. Any body out there beat a 6 - 5 - 3 - 2 - ace? No? Going once ... going twice ... we have a winner. C'mon on up, and get your $2500 cash prize. And congratulations!"

* * *

It wouldn't have been so hard for Carl to take that Emma had beat him in the poker run, but the worst part came later, when the mechanic in Baker charged Carl slightly over $500 to repair the air conditioner. To add insult to injury, Emma refused to contribute a dime of her winnings to the repair, and tucked the money back up in her cookie jar, then hid it behind the Ritz Cracker box where it was safe.