
Have Mummy Will Travel
While my Mylar balloons guarded my house, I spent the weekend at Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. When I left, I anticipated shopping and light gambling with the slot machines. Ah, but my mummy buddy had a different type of gambling in mind. Dat’s wight, wabbits, I’m talking about the mummy from Atlantic City.
In June, I explored Virginia Beach, including the House of Mirrors, and I saw the mummy’s image etched on the glass. But given the excitement of the two book releases and many balloon chases, I’d plumb forgotten about it. The mummy didn’t. There’s burial ground about three miles from the casino, and the dead don’t rest easy.
Mohegan Sun, built by the Mohegan tribe, has much beauty. At the Casino of the Sky, you can look up and swear that you were in an open building with blue sky overhead. The architects planned it that well. A long hallway leads to the shops, restaurants, and the Casino of the Earth, where a waterfall was built. Near the waterfall, a mountain lion poses on a vast rocky post. If you go to my Facebook page, you’ll see all the pictures of the waterfall, lion, and hallway that depicts Indian drawings and tools. In the corridor, at the last panel, stood a canoe. At its base lay something covered by a red blanket. I’ve posted a photo, and if you look closely, you can make out fingers poking from underneath the blanket. A fellow traveler explained that the red blanket thing was a papoose, a type of bag for carrying children.
Now I did some research and learned that the Egyptians aren’t the only people known for mummification. What’s more, most papooses have an opening for the child’s face. Not this one. It was definitely worthy of a photograph. All the same, I got to thinking about the AC mummy and found an alternate route to the shops and Casino of the Earth.
Between the Virginia House of Mirrors and the hallway sighting, the gambling has begun. I had written “Reunion with the Unspeakable,” a short story about mummies on a previous blog. According to my Mylar balloons, I’ll need to write a book with a mummy character down the road.