Telling jokes, winning money and watching Cheap Trick

This week, I headed up to Michigan's upper peninsula for a string of shows at a few casinos. My good buddy, Keith Lenart, and I piled into his rockin' mini-van and headed up to snow country.

Our first stop was at the Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace. Here's its porch (complete with the lovely view of Lake Superior):


And the cozy fireplace I spent a bit of time in front of:


The cool roof that my camera didn't do any justice:


After a small, yet fun show in St. Ignace, we headed to Sault Ste. Marie, where we performed for a packed house.

Here's Keith on stage:

Eighty-three cents (and bragging rights) goes to the person who can correctly identify the UFC fighter in the background.

The Sault Ste. Marie casino had a fireplace as well (and fake trees!):


And a waterfall:


Right before Keith got busted for riding his snow mobile indoors.


Before the show, I decided to take advance of my "free play" (No, that's not a hook-up you don't have to pay for, it's the amount of money you get to play on the slots after signing up for a player's club card at a casino), and I won a whole dollar fifty! Try not to get jealous.


After thoroughly gorging ourselves at the buffet, ordering a vegan pizza (Yay for free food!) and taking hours to contemplate how to spend my winnings, we headed to yet another casino.


At this one, as soon as we arrived, I made a beeline to the player's club area, cashed in my free play and sat down at a slot machine. And guess what happened?

I won!!!

That's what mama's talkin' about!

I actually won about $103.00 when all was said and done. Yee-haw!


That's headliner, Jack Willhite, Scott from Rock 101 and me after the show (which was a blast!).

After the show, I went to bed so I could wake up early to drive to Milwaukee. Keith was a trooper and drove us in these ick-tastic conditions:


In Milwaukee, we played at the Potawatomi Casino. And guess who else did?

Cheap Trick!

In between shows, Steve, the super awesome Entertainment Director, sneaked Keith and me into the third row.


I didn't enter the room a big Cheap Trick fan, but I definitely left as one. They rocked it out! I was really impressed how well they could still sing and jump around (especially since they can do things at 60 that I couldn't even do at 20).

And Keith even got a pick that Rick Nielsen threw into the crowd:


I'm back in the good ol' mitten now, and I can't wait to go to Florida at the end of this week!