Wing Wars and Book Reviews

Greetings northern clime inhabitants.
Here is another report on the goings on of Snowbird world in Southwest Florida.

First, Wing Wars.
What, you may ask are "Wing Wars"?
I will tell you.
It's a serious thing down here just to let you know.

The Tamiami Trail, also known as Route 41 is a long stretch of highway that, in Port Charlotte contains many stores, strip malls and restaurants.
A few of these restaurants are of the "sports bar" variety.
They are fairly busy when there is nothing much going on but when it's a) a major sporting event night or day ie. Superbowl or b) wing night WATCH OUT!
It's packed.
Beyond packed.
They set up extra picnic tables to accommodate the overflow.
These places are the sites of Wing Wars.

Chubby'z has 30 cent wings on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Happy hour is a happy time with 2 for 1 drinks. This is a happy thing that we don't see in Canada. But it's the wings that bring them in too.

Half a mile up the road is Gator's.
It has 25 cent wings.
ON THE SAME NIGHT as Chubby'z.
Oh my goodness what a bottle neck of parking and traffic around each place. Thankfully they are on opposite sides of the street.

YIKES! It's a Wing War!
Last night we thought we'd go for wings again as Chubby'z was such a positive experience. We couldn't get near the place.
Thought we'd try Gator's.
Holy Cow! It was worse! Packed like sardines they were quaffing brews and munching on chicken appendages.
Both places were making a killing.
We abandoned the quest on Route 41 and headed to another place the pool guy suggested.
(Always ask the locals where good stuff is!)

We headed to Buffalo Wings and Rings. It's a few miles to the east and not nearly as busy. Of course it wasn't.
No Wing War here.
Got a booth, happy hour drink (oh yeah) and great wings.
To The Man's enjoyment there was trivia on one of the TV screens and he was enjoying the challenge. I was watching basketball on another screen (way too popular down here).
The restaurant was very busy, not packed but busy.

This area truly loves it's wings and so does the population judging by the Wing Wars. When I am next in Chubby'z or finally make it into Gator's I will ask how many tons of flappers they go through on a Wing Night.

Truly crazy down here.

The other thing that's crazy is the books The Man has devoured on his time here.
He does not, as a rule, read books. It may take him months to read even a few chapters.
Give him a pool, sunshine and not much else to do (the old movies on Turner Classic Movie channel keeps him occupied at night) he goes NUTS on books.

These are the ones he's FINISHED. We actually had to go to the bookstore here (what a place that is!) and buy some more.

Getting easily intimidated by large volumes he did decide on the latest Stephen King book, which surprised me as it's huge!

I'm still shocked that he actually got into it as it's not quite the same genre as the others. Never ceases to amaze me how fast he can read when given the chance.

Me? I've read Anne Murray's biography (oh yes, The Man read that TOO!), a Clive Cussler suspence, a book on Rin Tin Tin, a quaint Amish based story and many, many crossword puzzles (hence the reason I haven't read quite as many books as The Man). It's been so much fun to lose myself in a book and really get into it without any mental distractions. I haven't read that much on any of my other travels, usually because my eyes were tired from all the driving but I just didn't feel like it.

I guess that's what Snowbirds do too. Read a lot. Not a bad thing really. It is fun to "catch up" on the stories I've missed.
While at the bookstore I found the final installment of the Clan of the Cave Bear series. The author Jean M. Auel, hadn't written anything for ages to finish off the series that she started years ago. I have all the other books in Toronto and this is the final one. It was published in July but due to travels I never picked it up. It's weird when you find a book that you're actually excited about reading. Glad I got it though!

Tonight it's warm enough to go for an evening swim! That's nice!
There have been record temperatures for January down here with only 15 tenths of an inch of rain (instead of the nearly 2 inches average) but then there have been near record temperatures up north too. So maybe we're sending warm weather north afterall and not even trying. Hope everyone likes it.... :-)

Right, so, there's my report for now.
As developments continue to arise in all these stories I will be happy to report!

Cheers all