I am absolutely terrible at figuring out what I want to do as a special treat on my birthday. With Mom, we went to the Mexican restaurant which I absolutely love. So, that was the easy decision. The next step was to figure out what John and I should do to celebrate. I wanted to do an activity vs. going out to eat.

I finally pinned it down to bowling. This worked great because we do not keep the bowling gear in the trailer; everything was at Mom’s house.

We went to Features located in West Salem, WI. We learned that the new style of pinsetters consists of putting a string on the top of the pins (called string pinsetters). A mechanical overhead bar or draw bar uses pulleys and a computer system to lift all the pins.

At first, John didn’t believe me when I said “I think the pins have strings on them.” After a few weird hits, John saw the string and was questioning if the pins flowed like old style bowling. We both agreed that the pins did not spin like the old set machines.

Even with the string pinsetter, we had a lot of fun. In total we played 2 games. John won the first game and I won the second game. Through John would say he was at an disadvantage with the string pinsetters. My bowling was less impacted by the strings because the ball only weighs 7 pounds and my bowling speed is between 7 and 8 mph. My ball doesn’t jostle the pins around as much. Some would say my ball bounces off the pins vs. the other way around.

John’s bowling showing great technique.

My not so great technique.

Score Board for game 1 and 2.

Fun time pictures.