Showing posts with label bowling center overview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bowling center overview. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2016

One day, three bowling centers part 3 - Winners Circle Lanes, Hot Springs SD

It's a 2-and-a-half hour drive northeast from Douglas to Hot Springs, South Dakota.

I hadn't intended to stop in Hot Springs, but as I drove through it on US-385 (it's actual address is
733US-385, which is also US-18, I saw the sign for the Winners Circle Lanes on the left-hand side of the road and had to go in. (Thus, the third bowling center in one day.)

Winners Circle Lanes - plus Subway and a tiny casino
It was Thursday, noon or 1 pm or so. 

However, I didn't want to take time to bowl, as I wanted to get to Rapid City in good time.

So I just took a few photos:


A variety of Micky Mouse bowling illustrations on the walls
Winners Circle Lane, Hot Springs hours
The scoring screens or "pindicators" - couldn't quite see what kind they were...
A 10-lane bowling center: Winners Circle Lanes in Hot Springs, SD
Lockers for the bowlers - outside the actual lanes, and the grill
In the entrance to the Subway, adjacent to the casino and the bowling center (all of which I assume are owned by the same person/company)


A page from a Superman comic in the 1950s - cautioning readers against prejudice
Call to action - Raise the Mammoth
Quite close to Hot Springs is the Mammoth Site (which I did not visit - will do so on my return visit!).

There's a mammoth sculpture on the corner of US-18 and I-90. It's only 1/3rd complete:


The Mammoth sculpture at the corner of US-18 and I-90.
I continued my trip to Rapid City, South Dakota, and arrived at the Days Inn at 5 pm, to find that my friend had arrived an hour earlier. He averaged 80 mph, I averaged in the 70s and of course made a few stops.

One day, three bowling centers part 2 - House of Pinz, Douglas, WY

Leaving Wheatlanes, I got back in mu car and  plugged the address for House of Pinz into my GPS. (I love my GPS!)

I then set out for Douglas, Wyoming.

Douglas is only another hour up the I-25N highway. It's a few miles past the turnoff (I-90) for Rapid City, but I had time and didn't mind having to retrace my steps in the slightest.

I-25 at this time of day and year is a pleasant drive (as long as it's not snowing and it wasn't, just a bit cold!).

I came to the exit for Douglas, which is a town of about 6,000 people, and the GPS took me directly to the House of Pinz.

It was not a stand-alone building, but rather nestled in between two others in the middle of North 3rd Street. (The actual address is 116 North 3rd Street).

I parked in diagonal parking across the street, and came to the door just in time to see several elementary school-aged children filing out of the bowling center and into a bright orange school bus.


School kids leaving House of Pinz in Douglas, WY
I began to hope that maybe the bowling center was actually open and I could get in three games, but it turned out that their hours were indeed 4 to 10 pm, and they only opened in the morning for school groups.

However, the owner, an ebullient young woman named Alicia Igo let me in to look around and explained the history of the place. It had been a bowling alley for decades, and she and her husband had bought it two years ago and renovated it. The pin setters were too old and had to be replaced, and thus they'd also had to give up the above-ground ball returns which wouldn't work with the new pin-setters - bummer!

Alicia was friendly and outgoing and very happy with the bowling center and its success in the city.

I'll be interviewing her (and bowling three games on the lanes) in another week or so.

Eight lanes, Brunswick keypads in the House of Pinz in Douglas, WY

Another view of the lanes in the House of Pinz



In their bar, the drinks are served upward. Not sure how that works!
I then got back into my car, punched in the address for the Days Inn in West Rapid City, and headed in that direction.




One day, three bowling centers - Part 1: Wheatlanes

On Thursday, March 17, I drove from my hone in Cheyenne, WY to Rapid City, SD (to the Days Inn on 725 Jackson Blvd in West Rapid City, to be precise).

I was rendezvousing there with a travel friend who was coming from Minneapolis, MN. He had a 9-hour drive (which turned out to be less than that because he drives really fast!) and I had a 5-hour drive.

I decided to take my time and stop in at two bowling centers in towns in Wyoming off of I-25 North, the highway I was taking to Rapid City.

The 24-lane bowling center in Cheyenne, 2 Bar Bowl, is open from 10 am to 11 pm or midnight depending on the day. But Cheyenne has 60,000 people. The towns in question had 5,000 people or less, and so the bowling centers are only open for evening hours (except on weekends). But I figured I would go to each bowling center, take photos and get a good lay of the land in preparation for another visit- when I would actually bowl in each center.

Wheatlanes, Wheatland, WY
Wheatlanes in Wheatland, WY on a Thursday morning in mid-March
Another view of the doors to Wheatlanes
Wheatland, Wyoming is a town of about 4,000 people. It's just a little past Chugwater (the town famous for its annual Chugwater Chili Cook-off and for having no gas station as a drunk driver crashed into it some years ago). It's an hour's drive or so from Cheyenne to Wheatland, on I-25N.

The address of the bowling center, Wheatlanes, is 101 16th Street. I plugged this into my GPS and it took me right to the spot, just off of I-25. On the opposite side of 16th street is a Burger King. On this side there was another fast food restaurant...an Arby's I think? (Will double-check on my next visit and amend this entry!)

The bowling center is adjacent to a motel, and I parked in the motel's parking lot as, when I arrived, there was a Budweiser beer truck making a delivery and parked right in front of the doors.

I walked over, saw the sign on the door giving the hours (4 pm to 10 pm except on weekends.) But, because the owner was there to take delivery, the doors were open and she let me come in and have a brief look around the place.

Earl Anthony in his iconic bowling pose
It's a small bowling center - ten lanes I think. (The lights were off and I had time for only a couple of photos before the owner and I got to talking. Too dark to photograph the lanes properly). The owner is a widow, and wishes to sell the bowling center. It's actually got an attached apartment (which I did not see) and if I only had the money.....!

Anyway, this woman was in her seventies at the very least, and she and her husband had bowled for decades. She had known Earl Anthony. So I will be interviewing her in another week or so.

There's a grill, and a bar (which serves more than just Budweiser, obviously) and interesting decor on the walls, or as below, in the window separating the lobby from the lounge/bar.

Stained-glass window of a bowler
After my brief chat, I bade the owner farewell and set out for my next destination in route to Rapid City, SD - Douglas, Wyoming.


Monday, March 14, 2016

Bowling Center: Warren Lanes, Warren AFB, Cheyenne, WY

Exterior on a cloudy Saturday at Warren Lanes on Warren AFB
Warren Lanes is a rather nondescript building. You wouldn't know it's a bowling center unless you saw the exterior signs - there's no large sign on the building itself.

To get to the bowling center you simply enter the base after showing your ID (and you need to be military or retired military or with a friend who is - or signed up to participate in a bowling tournament) and continue down Randall Avenue to the second set of lights, where you turn left. A sign on your right will point you to the bowling center.

Sadly, if I remember correctly, there used to be a library near the bowling center - and it has actually closed, according to my sister (retired Air Force whose husband, also retired, works as an independent contractor at his old job there in PMEL.)

That's really sad, that a library would close...

Anyway, back to Warren Lanes.

Another exterior shot of Warren Lanes
Fall/winter hours at Warren Lanes
Note that the bowling center closes at 6 pm on Sunday. 6 pm! You think it would stay open to 11 pm on that day also! I suppose they must have kept track of the number of visitors they got each day and found that few people came on a Sunday after 6 - but I find it strange that that would be the case. On the other hand I find it strange that the on-base library should close because of lack of use - that's pretty sad, too!

Enter the bowling center and the first thing you see on your left is a kind of alcove where people can sit if they are drinkers. There's a small bar there (which I didn't get a photo of.)

"Lounge" adjacent to tiny bar at Warren Lanes
To the right are the 12 bowling lanes. Notice how the Qubica pads are oval, and there's no shelf underneath them (as there is at 2 Bar Bowl) to put one's bowling towel, rosin, and so on.

Photo showing all twelve lanes from left to right
Note that the ramps for kids are placed between lanes 6 and 7. The red thing is the oil machine.

Qubica Machine
The Qubica machine allows people to input the names of bowlers, correct scores, and so on.

The two balls on the ball return above are mine - the orange/blue one is my Brunswick Mastermind, the brown/goldish one is my Viziball Pirate ball - which i like very much but which is plastic. I can't get it redrilled for fingertip because after finger holes are plugged the ball needs to be sanded and the picture of the pirate on one side and a treasure map on the other would come right off!

The chairs are perpendicular to the ball return
 As you can see from the photo above, there's a bowler waiting to step on the approach. Adjacent to her are the rows of seats - each lane has a row of seats. Makes it kind of claustrophobic, in my opinion.  There is additional seating up above the "settee" area.

Warren Lanes "command center"
Above photo shows the counter, from the rear, facing the lanes, where people come to rent lanes, get their bowling shoes, etc. Presumably the bowling shoes are in little boxes running the length of the counter - I actually forgot to look when I was there! But there's no place else they can be.

There are no lane phones for people to call back for "ball return" or "deadwood" on the lanes. They must have to run up to the counter (or shout loudly) to get something like that fixed.

Game Time Snack bar
In the far right corner of the center is the Game Time snack bar. They had cans of Pepsi as well as coca cola products in fountain drinks, hamburgers, etc.)

Ice cream bar - with a variety of toppings
The Warren Lanes dining area is narrow, but long. It's to the right of the bowlers, and walled off for the most part so it's relatively quiet.

Warren Lanes dining area
And finally, a shot of the lanes with women bowlers participating in the Cheyenne WY City Tournament which took place the last weekend in March and the first weekend in April.:


Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Bowling Center: 2 Bar Bowl in Cheyenne, WY

My "home" bowling center is Two Bar Bowl (http://www.2barbowl.com/), located at 700 E. Carlson in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

2 Bar Bowl has 24 lanes, an adjacent bar and package liquor store, a pro shop, and a cafe.


I bowl on four leagues - Sunday Happy Moose, Monday Senior Pioneers, Tuesday Shoppers and as a sub on the Wednesday +55 Seniors league.

During the winter season, 2 Bar has leagues every day except Saturday. Only one of them is a "scratch" league - the others are handicap.

Here's the sign showing lane assignments for the Wednesday +55 Seniors. The desk clerk had a bit of fun with it...


Each league has lane assignment cards, in  a different color, printed out by the 2 Bar Bowl folks. For each league the card for each team is placed on the appropriate lane. When two leagues are bowling at the same time, they sometimes placed adjacent to each other. Since the cards are different colors, the team members don't get confused as to which lane is theirs!



For leagues, each team receives a cardboardish type of pay envelope before they begin bowling on that day. Many people pay an entire month in advance - others pay on a weekly basis.


No more manual scoring. Everything is done electronically.


The Qubica screens. Bowlers can remove frames, correct scores, add bowlers, skip bowlers, put bowlers in "blind", and so on.



Above are a couple of angles of the Perfect Approach pro shop