Having visited Buffalo, New York several times over the years for dance competitions (our kid, not me in case you weren’t sure), it occurred to us that we had never visiting the Anchor Bar. What is the Anchor Bar you ask? Well, for those of you not versed in the history of chicken wings, the Anchor Bar is storied to be the place where the Buffalo chicken wing was born. We recently saw the place on an episode of Bobby Flay’s Throwdown and thought for sure the place would be worth a visit.

Walking in the lobby, things were looking good. Not only does the place have a genuine ambiance, but it’s a gearhead’s dream, with hundreds of license plates lining the walls and a bunch of motorcycles on display. Beyond the decor however, I have to say the place was underwhelming.
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Popularity: 4%

While I’ve only been here a day, Connecticut is weird. Firstly, it has to be the whitest place in the world. That in itself is odd, when you consider how ethnically diverse the place is. It’s hard to describe the vibe here. The closest thing I can compare it to is that it feels like a bad Seinfeld episode.

This morning at breakfast, there was the couple in their late Forties. She was dressed straight out of the Preppy Handbook. That said, so was he, right down to the button down, blue blazer and grey flannels. At breakfast. There was no question as she bitched her way through breakfast that she wore the pants in the family, until he finally exploded with “how many times are you going to tell me that. I don’t care!” Then, at his wife’s bidding, he began to berate the front desk clerk about the fact that they had to pay for breakfast.

Then of course, there was the 40 something east coast dyke in one of those Polo golf dresses. You know the ones, it looks like Ralph Lauren lengthened the golf shirt into a dress. If I remember the Preppy Handbook correctly, women are supposed to stop wearing that dress when they are about 14.
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Popularity: 3%

For the first couple of hours, that’s all I saw yesterday. The suddenly, as the Violent Femmes belted out Blister in the sun, the sun broke through and blinded me through the sunroof. It only stuck around for a an hour or so, and then was dreary for the rest of the 9 hour drive.
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Popularity: 2%

The first part of the trip to the Pocono mountains has gone smoothly and we’ve made it from Ontario to Watertown New York. We actually confused the border guard when we said we were heading to the Poconos to road test cars. He tried to figure out if we might need a work visa, but his co-workers more or less told him to settle down. “The guy is going to drive some cars, go home and write about them. He’ll get paid at home in Canada.” Nice call Mr. Border Man!

We’ve been warned in the past couple of weeks that we’ll see lots of deer and we should be careful. I figured we wouldn’t see deer till further south, but we saw a doe and her calf about halfway between the border and Watertown. They were well off the road, but still close enough to act as a reminder than we’ll need to keep our eyes open tomorrow.
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Popularity: 3%