Linda found a treasure. This isn’t just any treasure. Think of the greatest treasure you could ever imagine. This is better than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow kind of treasure. This is better than winning the lottery kind of treasure. This is better than the shirtless wonder asking me out on a date kind of treasure. Ok, maybe that last one went too far… but it is good. Really really good.
Linda found the self proclaimed “World’s Smallest Bowling Alley,” – Bobby D’s and I would say based on what I have seen on MTV Cribs, that just might be true. I am sure that P-Diddy’s bowling alley is bigger than this one, but there ain’t no way it is better. No freakin’ way.
Coincidentally, Linda had a good friend in town at the exact same time Brooke was visiting me. Stefanie is darling; she is from Georgia and has the cutest little southern accent you have ever heard. She has the kind of drawl that makes her sound sweet, not stupid… and that is a huge accomplishment when you are from the south. Linda and Stefanie worked together as Physical Therapists in San Francisco, and Stef moved back to Georgia last fall. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Stef… but I have to tell you that my favorite thing about Stefanie is that she went on the zip line tour with Brooke, so I didn’t have to feel guilty for sending Brooke alone. Gracias Stephanie. Though frankly, I don’t know that I would have felt guilty, as you should not have to feel guilty for attempting to prevent your own death. But, I have now seen pictures of their zip line tour, and it was in no way as high, long or scary as the one I went on. I got jipped.
We decided with our guests in town, we were going to visit the bowling alley for a Friday night of entertainment. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl. Come on y’all, I had my Willie Nelson themed 32nd birthday party at a bowling alley. While I don’t have any pictures of that on this computer, I can at least provide you with a gratuitous picture of me and Willie. I love this man… maybe even more than the monkeys… but please, don’t tell them.
Btw, seeing myself in a jacket actually just caused me to break into a sweat. I can't imagine what it will be like to put a down jacket back on again.We drove down some very dark potholed roads to get to this bowling alley during which time we made bets about what the place would actually be like. While we brought socks as a precautionary measure, we were not convinced that we would need them and thought we would probably be bowling in flip flops. Linda and Kurt had previously driven past the bowling alley, but they had never been inside and none of us had any idea what was to come. We could have never imagined how spectacular it would be.
Here is a picture of Bobby D's from the outside.We walked into the bowling alley at around 8:30 on a Friday night, and there was essentially no one there aside from two women sitting at a table, the bartender, and a kid who worked there and looked to be about 16 years old. However, as with everywhere in Costa Rica, we were welcomed with a smile. We knew, as the only Gringos, that this was the kind of place where we were really going to have to practice our Spanish… which is exactly what we need.
There was a pool table right inside the door, and we could see the 2 bowling lanes behind a locked gate. As we walked up to the bar we were also surprised to see a whole case of bowling shoes awaiting us, good thing we brought socks. And these were legit bowling shoes, the kind you would get in the states, but with the added bonus of neon green shoe laces. Now that is a good look.
I am not sure why the bowling lanes were behind a locked gate, but the shoes weren’t. I guess bowling balls have a higher value in Quepos than bowling shoes. Wait, maybe that is the reason for the neon shoe laces, there is no way you could sneak out of that place with bowling shoes on, the laces would glow in the dark and rat you out. Though based on that theory, how in the world would anyone sneak out a bowling ball out without anyone seeing?
We began to try on shoes (as an fyi, I am a 38 in Tico shoes) and ordered beers, and asked the very kind bartender to open the gate so we could bowl. The beers were only 800 colones – which is about $1.50. So let me make sure you fully comprehend what happened here...not only were we provided with the opportunity to bowl in shoes with neon laces, but we were also provided with the opportunity to drink super cheap beers… could this get better? Oh yah baby, it gets better. The bartender told us that if we drank beers we didn’t have to pay to bowl. WHAT?
No $2 shoe rentals?
No $20 per hour per lane?
No $4 beer?
So let me get this right, we get to drink the best priced beer in town and we get rewarded for drinking said beer with free bowling? Presidio Bowl, you can kiss my ass!
And btw, who in the world, over the age of 15, bowls without drinking?
Our delightful bartender, Edith, opened the gate for us to enter the two lane bowling alley; the “World’s Smallest Bowling Alley” claim just might be right. 
After the first game, Edith came to us and asked us if we would like for Angel (the kid who works at the alley) to come and set the pins back up for us. At first we said no, we were after all, trying to get the full Bobby D’s experience… but after Kurt and Stef had their turn and Brooke and I realized we would be up again, we called Angel over. Turns out, that is his job, so there was no reason for us to feel like high maintenance Americans. And, for the record, we tipped him at the end… and Kurt did offer to buy him a beer, before we pointed out he was young enough to be our child.
There was a pool table right inside the door, and we could see the 2 bowling lanes behind a locked gate. As we walked up to the bar we were also surprised to see a whole case of bowling shoes awaiting us, good thing we brought socks. And these were legit bowling shoes, the kind you would get in the states, but with the added bonus of neon green shoe laces. Now that is a good look.
I am not sure why the bowling lanes were behind a locked gate, but the shoes weren’t. I guess bowling balls have a higher value in Quepos than bowling shoes. Wait, maybe that is the reason for the neon shoe laces, there is no way you could sneak out of that place with bowling shoes on, the laces would glow in the dark and rat you out. Though based on that theory, how in the world would anyone sneak out a bowling ball out without anyone seeing?
We began to try on shoes (as an fyi, I am a 38 in Tico shoes) and ordered beers, and asked the very kind bartender to open the gate so we could bowl. The beers were only 800 colones – which is about $1.50. So let me make sure you fully comprehend what happened here...not only were we provided with the opportunity to bowl in shoes with neon laces, but we were also provided with the opportunity to drink super cheap beers… could this get better? Oh yah baby, it gets better. The bartender told us that if we drank beers we didn’t have to pay to bowl. WHAT?
No $2 shoe rentals?
No $20 per hour per lane?
No $4 beer?
So let me get this right, we get to drink the best priced beer in town and we get rewarded for drinking said beer with free bowling? Presidio Bowl, you can kiss my ass!
And btw, who in the world, over the age of 15, bowls without drinking?
Our delightful bartender, Edith, opened the gate for us to enter the two lane bowling alley; the “World’s Smallest Bowling Alley” claim just might be right. When we entered the bowling alley Edith brought us some paper score cards to keep track of our professional like scores. It made me kinda laugh that we were going to be self scoring. Who knows how to self score these days?
Luckily, Linda once again proved to be a very valuable person to have around. And I am now proud to say that I know how to manually figure out a bowling score. Who knows when this skill will come in handy again? Though don’t be too impressed, it is not very difficult, but I will admit that the American luxury of having a machine do the math for you is nice; especially after a handful of the best priced beers.
It reminded me of when I was a little girl growing up in Oakshore Park. My parents played in a neighborhood bowling league every Saturday night, and all of the kids would come along. Who needs a babysitter when you can give each of your kids $2… which was enough to provide us with video game entertainment and candy all evening? And, let’s face it, they couldn’t just send us to spend the night at someone else’s house (which was the usual tactic) because the whole neighborhood was at the bowling alley (yes, we were a classy bunch). And you couldn’t count on the teenagers to babysit because they were all having drinking parties at their houses while they knew their parents were otherwise occupied…. at least that is what I did when I was in high school and my parents had Bridge Night.
So I spent every Saturday night at the bowling alley, getting candy from the vending machine, drinking Shirley Temples and playing Ms. Pacman and Frogger. And when we ran out of money, we would use the payphones to call the operator and asked for the numbers for the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. That provided us with HOURS of entertainment, and I am sure the operators loved it as well.
I remember that my parents used to have to score their game manually, but they would write the score on a board at the table which would then project up onto a larger screen so that others could see the scores. That seemed to do the job. But here, at Bobby D’s… not so much. You are provided with little pencils (with no erasers so you better get it right the first time) and paper to score. Good enough for me.
But let me tell you about the major difference between bowling at Bobby D’s and bowling at every other bowling alley I have ever seen… including the bowling alleys I visited with my parents almost 30 years ago.
There was no machinery! No mechanical devices what so ever!
Here is a picture taken while I was standing in the "pin pit"... you can't get this picture at Presidio Bowl.
Luckily, Linda once again proved to be a very valuable person to have around. And I am now proud to say that I know how to manually figure out a bowling score. Who knows when this skill will come in handy again? Though don’t be too impressed, it is not very difficult, but I will admit that the American luxury of having a machine do the math for you is nice; especially after a handful of the best priced beers.It reminded me of when I was a little girl growing up in Oakshore Park. My parents played in a neighborhood bowling league every Saturday night, and all of the kids would come along. Who needs a babysitter when you can give each of your kids $2… which was enough to provide us with video game entertainment and candy all evening? And, let’s face it, they couldn’t just send us to spend the night at someone else’s house (which was the usual tactic) because the whole neighborhood was at the bowling alley (yes, we were a classy bunch). And you couldn’t count on the teenagers to babysit because they were all having drinking parties at their houses while they knew their parents were otherwise occupied…. at least that is what I did when I was in high school and my parents had Bridge Night.
So I spent every Saturday night at the bowling alley, getting candy from the vending machine, drinking Shirley Temples and playing Ms. Pacman and Frogger. And when we ran out of money, we would use the payphones to call the operator and asked for the numbers for the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. That provided us with HOURS of entertainment, and I am sure the operators loved it as well.
I remember that my parents used to have to score their game manually, but they would write the score on a board at the table which would then project up onto a larger screen so that others could see the scores. That seemed to do the job. But here, at Bobby D’s… not so much. You are provided with little pencils (with no erasers so you better get it right the first time) and paper to score. Good enough for me.
But let me tell you about the major difference between bowling at Bobby D’s and bowling at every other bowling alley I have ever seen… including the bowling alleys I visited with my parents almost 30 years ago.
There was no machinery! No mechanical devices what so ever!
No automated devices to pick up or reset the pins!
No machine to send your ball back to you after you bowled!
I realized this difference as I was choosing my ball and glanced down the lane and said “How do we get the pins back up after we knock them down?” Kurt and I then began to walk down the lane, and about half way down we realized that there was a padded pit at the end of lane where the pins landed when they were knocked down….and nothing there to set them back up. That’s right; this is a manual bowling alley in the fullest sense of the word. And while I thought it would be great to have computers calculate our scores for us, what would have been even better would be to have a machine to pick back up the pins.
Here is a picture taken while I was standing in the "pin pit"... you can't get this picture at Presidio Bowl.I volunteered to set up pins first, because after all, I had already walked down to the end of the lanes to scope out the situation…which meant the others had already started their practice shots. I began “covering” both lanes, but after about 5 minutes of working and sweating my ass off, though not moving as quickly as my friends would have liked (and let me tell you, they know how to heckle), Brooke volunteered to come and take over one of the lanes. Gracias Dios, I knew I invited her to come to Costa Rica for a reason. So Brooke and I worked together setting back up the pins, which was a good workout and was hot as hell. There doesn’t seem to be much air circulation at the end of the alley, not even after Stef discovered the fan (another genius find - turns out there was something mechanical after all).
After the first game, Edith came to us and asked us if we would like for Angel (the kid who works at the alley) to come and set the pins back up for us. At first we said no, we were after all, trying to get the full Bobby D’s experience… but after Kurt and Stef had their turn and Brooke and I realized we would be up again, we called Angel over. Turns out, that is his job, so there was no reason for us to feel like high maintenance Americans. And, for the record, we tipped him at the end… and Kurt did offer to buy him a beer, before we pointed out he was young enough to be our child. Action shots of Linda and Kurt
When Kurt saw this picture of himself he said "look at that form"... but I am pretty sure it was a gutter.
We bowled a couple more games, and towards the end, Kurt went back down to the “pin pit” to help Angel out. Kurt claimed that he was going to help him out because Angel was having to do so much work… but the truth is, Kurt had been surrounded by 4 girls for the past 3 days (which originally may seem fantastic, but probably gets old very quickly) so the poor guy just wanted to be around any testosterone he could find. And as happens when boys get together, Kurt all of a sudden started trying to be the “cool, funny guy” and was really trying to IMPRESS. While Kurt and Angel seemed to be enjoying themselves and joking around; this resulted, among other things, in Kurt demonstrating his “trailer trash” pose. Boy, I can see why Linda would quit her job and move to Costa Rica with him for a year.
While the boys were at the end, we girls had a great time bowling and talking about fashion. Notice that Stef has on socks with a pink rim that match her shirt. It is as if she knew we were going bowling during her vacation. See people, there is no such thing as over packing. Unless of course you are Hot Neighbor and have to carry my suitcase for me…. btw, HN, I will be home on August 27th, can’t wait to see you… I promise to make you zucchini bread and cookies the first weekend I am home. That is, if you survive carrying my suitcase up 3 flights of stairs.
As we were wrapping up our evening (read: were told we had to leave because it was already past their closing time), Edith could tell that we weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to Bobby D’s (as we asked her to take pictures with 3 different cameras) and informed us that there was a Monday Night Bowling League. WHAT???? How could we resist?
Yah baby, that is right, we joined a bowling league in Costa Rica… every Monday night, for the next 8 weeks, we will be kicking Tico ass at Bobby D’s. Oh, and incase you are wondering, we do have to pay to be in the league… but I am pretty sure I can afford the $2 a week. Bobby D’s is really the most fantastic place ever.
Here is Kurt signing us up. Team name YTBD.
As you can imagine, we had an amazing time at the “World’s Smallest Bowling Alley” with lots of cheap beers and lots of laughs… and while there were many hysterical moments and great discoveries, the highlight of the night was Kurt’s attempt to really IMPRESS his new friend Angel. After seeing this video, you will understand why I have capitalized the word IMPRESS, but may still be boggled as to why Linda, such a smart, cute fun girl… would move to Costa Rica with him. – Be sure you have the volume up... and for the full effect of this video, you will need to watch it more than once. The sound quality isn't great... but it is worth replaying to hear everything said... as it is quite IMPRESSIVE!
When Kurt saw this picture of himself he said "look at that form"... but I am pretty sure it was a gutter.
We bowled a couple more games, and towards the end, Kurt went back down to the “pin pit” to help Angel out. Kurt claimed that he was going to help him out because Angel was having to do so much work… but the truth is, Kurt had been surrounded by 4 girls for the past 3 days (which originally may seem fantastic, but probably gets old very quickly) so the poor guy just wanted to be around any testosterone he could find. And as happens when boys get together, Kurt all of a sudden started trying to be the “cool, funny guy” and was really trying to IMPRESS. While Kurt and Angel seemed to be enjoying themselves and joking around; this resulted, among other things, in Kurt demonstrating his “trailer trash” pose. Boy, I can see why Linda would quit her job and move to Costa Rica with him for a year.
While the boys were at the end, we girls had a great time bowling and talking about fashion. Notice that Stef has on socks with a pink rim that match her shirt. It is as if she knew we were going bowling during her vacation. See people, there is no such thing as over packing. Unless of course you are Hot Neighbor and have to carry my suitcase for me…. btw, HN, I will be home on August 27th, can’t wait to see you… I promise to make you zucchini bread and cookies the first weekend I am home. That is, if you survive carrying my suitcase up 3 flights of stairs.
As we were wrapping up our evening (read: were told we had to leave because it was already past their closing time), Edith could tell that we weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to Bobby D’s (as we asked her to take pictures with 3 different cameras) and informed us that there was a Monday Night Bowling League. WHAT???? How could we resist?
Yah baby, that is right, we joined a bowling league in Costa Rica… every Monday night, for the next 8 weeks, we will be kicking Tico ass at Bobby D’s. Oh, and incase you are wondering, we do have to pay to be in the league… but I am pretty sure I can afford the $2 a week. Bobby D’s is really the most fantastic place ever.
Here is Kurt signing us up. Team name YTBD.As you can imagine, we had an amazing time at the “World’s Smallest Bowling Alley” with lots of cheap beers and lots of laughs… and while there were many hysterical moments and great discoveries, the highlight of the night was Kurt’s attempt to really IMPRESS his new friend Angel. After seeing this video, you will understand why I have capitalized the word IMPRESS, but may still be boggled as to why Linda, such a smart, cute fun girl… would move to Costa Rica with him. – Be sure you have the volume up... and for the full effect of this video, you will need to watch it more than once. The sound quality isn't great... but it is worth replaying to hear everything said... as it is quite IMPRESSIVE!
