Things to Do in Blaine

Ham Lake Lanes champions recreational and league bowlers with 24 glossy lanes replete with automatic scoring and bumpers. Friday Night Lights sets the facility aglow from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. when flashing beams and dazzling black lights set the stage for a cosmic-inspired competition. Between frames or games, groups can nosh on pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and scorecards filled with tasty turkeys or seek out off-lane fun in the full video arcade.

A tall painted portrait, illuminated from above, shows a woman standing barefoot holding a lamb. Follow her glance downwards and sideways, and you'll sight row upon brightly colored row of carefully stacked skeins of yarn from brands such as Blue Sky and Spud & Chloë. Classes teach tender-footed knitters to wield these materials with care, and more advanced offerings cover refined and specialized stitching skills. The shop also carries its own line of all-natural soaps, household cleaners, and moisturizers designed to soften hands toughened by efforts to wrestle needles away from uncooperative porcupines.

Since 1995, the Bunker Park Stable staff and their trusty team of horses have hosted a wide array of equine-based activities including lessons, trail rides, hay rides, and day camps. The stable’s well-appointed facilities reside inside the 1,600-acre Bunker Hills Regional Park and act as a hub for the vast network of trails that passes through the park’s grassy meadows and vast forests of pine and oak. Horse-top visitors may witness native park wildlife such as white-tail deer, sandhill cranes, and hawks and overhear songbirds as they belt out choruses in the hopes of becoming the next superstar discovered in a forest, just like Celine Dion.

For more than 25 years, families have flocked to Goony Golf for family entertainment ranging from curvy putting greens to a video arcade. When fully operational, three 18-hole courses star a cast of colorful creatures, such as a pink kangaroo, Humpty Dumpty, and a bird in a mortarboard and graduation robe. Beyond the 36 holes, guests can rack up points on pinball machines or head to the air-hockey table to re-create Team USA’s miraculous 1980 victory over the Soviet Union’s giant plastic mallet.

Metro Gun Club’s team refines the skills of sportsmen of all levels by overseeing a collection of indoor and outdoor ranges. Its facilities include 14 trap fields, each equipped with Pat-Trap throwers and four outfitted with a wobble option that can oscillate targets both vertically and horizontally. Beyond the trap fields, the outdoor ranges span six skeet fields, four five-stand sporting-clay fields, and a 75-foot duck tower offering five shooting blinds. Range masters also oversee a 14-lane, 50-foot indoor pistol gallery, as well as an archery range run by retired merry men.

To encourage responsible firearms operation, Metro’s weapon experts lead training courses, such as the Permit to Carry classes, and organize league shooting.

The low, steady rumbling of balls rolling across polished wood echoes throughout Andover Lanes, where players line up shots or watch their friends topple pins from a seating area outfitted with retro, three-sided tables. Pulsating dance beats reverberate from the alley’s internet jukebox, mingling with the thunderous sounds of pins crashing to create an air of palpable excitement. This excitement is never more apparent than on Friday evenings, when the 24 lanes take on incandescent hues during rounds of cosmic bowling and the alley’s full bar and grill stays busy all night slinging pizzas, wraps, and burgers. The alley’s arcade similarly lights up with glinting pool balls and video-game consoles that keep fingers loose after hours of hurling balls down lanes or bench-pressing french fries. To complement its all-American food and retro vibe, the bar also hosts a wide projection screen for sports games and a stage for karaoke and live musicians