Poker Run

Windsock Aviation at Weiser held a Poker Run last weekend. I put my 3 year old in the 172, paid my $10 dollar entry fee and off we went.

What's a "Poker Run" you ask? It's basically a luck of the draw game to see who can get the best winning poker hand. You start at Weiser by drawing a card. You then fly to 3 other airports where a deck of cards has been placed. You draw a card at each airport and then return to the original point of departure where you draw your final card. Put all five cards together and after everyone has finished flying, the best hand wins. For this run, we visited La Porte, Brazoria County, and Houston-Southwest.

When we got back to Weiser, there was already a Full House in first place and 3 sixes in second. I knew I was holding a 10 of spades, a Jack of spades, and two 7 of spades. Not being totally poker-hand-savy, I was mainly hoping for another 7. At first I was disappointed when my son drew a 2 of spades, but then somebody said, "Wait a minute, what were your other cards?" I told him and he said, "Well that's a Flush. That beats 3 of a kind." Well, he was right, so that put me in second place. I needed to get the airplane home for somebody else to fly so we didn't get to hang around and see if anything better turned up. There were still 6 or 7 airplanes out flying so I didn't know what they were going to come back with. As it turned out, our luck held and we ended up in second place overall! Our prize will be a gift certificate for dinner at the Brenham airport diner! Woo Hoo!!!

To put it all in perspective, with the 172 costing $60/hour, us flying for a total of 3 hours, and the $10 entry fee, we spent $190 for a "free" meal... All that and we got to go flying too? Well, let me tell you, it doesn't get any better than that! Where do we sign up for the next one?