We're at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno for......well, we're not exactly certain. With anything involving a league at Pinole Valley Lanes, information is scarce. When the league started we were told we would travel to Reno at the end of the season to bowl in a tournament.
Later we were told our league's sweeper would be held in Reno at the end of the season. The latter would seem unlikely since only seven members of our league made the trip. (We came to Reno on a bus with members of two other leagues from Pinole Valley Lanes.) So as I said earlier, we don't really know what we're doing here except that we will do some bowling.
We were supposed to leave Pinole at 7:00 PM but we got a late start. Still, we made pretty good time. Even with a stop at McDonald's in Auburn, we arrived at the Grand Sierra Resort at 10:50 PM. We checked in quickly and went down to the bowling center for a few practice games.
Unfortunately, Grand Sierra has cosmic bowling from 9:00 PM to 3:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights. That means bowling in the dark with awful pop music blaring at high volume and lots of preening twenty-somethings demonstrating little understanding of bowling courtesey and even less ability to handle a couple of beers.
Despite the poor conditions for serious bowling, The Coach, Olivia, Sharon and I decided to try a couple of practice games. It was tough bowling in the dark with loud music playing and dingbats on both sides of us. Only Sharon didn't notice the difficult conditions. She had a game in the 190s and followed it with a 253. Whether we bowl in a sweeper or a tournament Saturday afternoon, Sharon may insist that we turn up the music and turn down the lights.
I think most of our crew stayed out too late in the casino last night. The Coach and I were the only ones who came out to practice Saturday morning. I take that back -- Gena came out too but by the time we got our lanes, she had moved on.
ReplyDeleteOur practice session was really good. The Coach practiced a couple of alternate strike lines and shooting spares with his new Raider ball. I worked on a flaw in my spare shooting. The Coach shot a couple of games in the 190s. I had one in the 190s and a 222.
When it came time for our sweeper, The Coach carried it over from practice and finished in first place. I left it on the practice lane and finished fifth. The prizes were given out while I was still cleaning up so I don't know the full order of finish. I know Sharon, Melanie, and Olivia had some good games. But no doubt The Coach was the big winner. He had a scratch series of 534.