Auguri! Buon Anno! Best wishes for 2009 from all of us at the eCool Compound!
We begin the new year with thanks to all our readers. We’ve received a number of fabulous emails over the holidays from readers who have written to let us know that they find inspiration, escape, and entertainment on the eCool blog. We’re so happy to hear from you and we’re eternally grateful to all of you who click on over to this site now and then. Your devotion to eCool and to all things Roman helped to make 2008 a very big year: we had over 850,000 hits and were named one of the Top 12 Ultra Cool Blogs of 2008 by Trends Updates.
What have we been up to lately? The eCool team hit the road this holiday season — and, in the process, we managed to prove the maxim that all roads lead to Rome. Even roads in Texas. And in Oklahoma.
Proof of Rome’s ubiquity is found in the photos offered by Susan Sanders on this Photo Friday (by the way, these photos are dedicated to you Kurt & Cindy). Susan recently found herself traveling through northern Texas and southern Oklahoma on interstate highway 35. Intrigued by billboards promoting a casino by proclaiming that “all roads lead to Rome — even this one” she pulled over on exit 1 in Thackerville, OK and made a giro through the giant inflatable building that is the Winstar Casino.
Inside the casino, Susan made preliminary stops in Paris, London, and Beijing before finding her way to the area called Rome (see photos above and below) and sitting down at a penny slot machine called “Pompeii.” And then one called “Zeus.” And then one called “Neptune.” And then one called “Venice.” Eventually, her odyssey even took her to “Troy.”
Did she win? Did her penny slot tour of the ancient world prove financially rewarding? Pushed to answer this question, Susan suggested that one-armed bandits in the Oklahoma Winstar Casino were just as effective at emptying her wallet as any pickpocket on a crowded bus in Rome.
For more photos by Susan Sanders, visit her website: Rome With A View.
