Molson Bike Tour (North): Buffalo Soldiers

Four brave souls converged upon the chicken wing capital of the world, Buffalo, to see our Detroit Lions conquer the 0-8 Buffalo Bills this past weekend. They were 0-8, come on, this should be an easy victory as this is not the same old Lions, correct? Well….

After arriving late Friday night we converged upon Chippewa St. which had a few watering holes to say the least. You have no excuse if you leave the area parched. The bars are open until 4 AM (no, we didn’t make it up that late – are you serious?). Our first stop was a recommendation by the bell hop, Bada Bing Bar and Grill. I have no idea the name of the band that was playing but they did a pretty sweet Chicago set (25 or 6 to 4, Make Me Smile, etc...) with the horns and all. Jerry arrived a bit later while we were at our second stop, Jack Devines Irish Pub a few doors down. He was coming from a work trip from Germany so he gets a gold star for making the trek. We ended the short evening with a stop at the Century Grill across the street from our hotel. The Century gets high marks for the wood fixtures throughout. The Buffalo scene seems very similar to the Detroit area; hard working, blue collar folks with no chips on their shoulder.

We got into tourist mode Saturday morning and drove out to Niagara Falls. It was my first time at the falls. We went into the information area and this guy starts giving us the sales pitch on the lookout tower, the Maid of the Mist boat ride, and other “special” viewing locations. After his pitch was done, I cut to the chase and asked the way to the falls. We just wanted to take a look and move on to our afternoon of chicken wing consumption; not get married. On the latter subject, I’m still scratching my head on the Niagara Falls/marriage combination that seems to be so trendy. I think it’s a beautiful natural wonder but it doesn’t get the wedding bells going for me.

The lunch outing Saturday was at the birth of the chicken wing, The Anchor Bar. I would have thought the chicken wing was around longer than 1964 but that was when Teressa Bellissimo (looked it up) first fried some up, added some sauce, and wah-lah!! We got there around 1 PM thinking that most people would be doing the dinner thing and it wouldn’t be too crowded. It was packed. The host sat us at a table of four, looked us over, picked up the menus, and said “this table is too small for you fellas.” We ended up getting a larger table which was key. You need room to spread out when you have 50 wings in front of you. No, we didn’t finish them all. They were very tasty with some good meat on them.

After some rest back at the room, we ventured back to the Century Grill. On the elevator down, there was a guy who looked very much like the president of the Lions. It was! He is a short one. It turns out we were staying in the same hotel as the team. Al and Greg claim to have seen a player but couldn’t match the name with the face. While at the Century, we ran into a former Red Wing (Maltby) and a Channel 2 sportscaster (The Hammer). The Hammer has some work to do on her pool playing. The place definitely had a Detroit feel to it. While I don’t follow boxing too much, that fight on Saturday night was a good one. I don’t know who Manny Pacquiao or Antonio Margarito are but Margarito sure can take a licking.

Unitards Rule!!

We woke Sunday morning to gray skies as we ventured to the game in Orchard Park. My apologies to the residents of Orchard Park but the stadium is situated in the middle of nowhere. It reminded me a bit of the Silverdome tailgating days with the parking lots all surrounding the stadium. Getting in and out was pretty quick. There were quite a cast of characters doing the tailgate scene. Pictured on here, we have the Bills version of the Unitard. If there is a Lion version, I’m not interested; a little too much disclosure for me. We also had the chicken wing hat wearers. The Heineken baby keg made an appearance to go along with some tasty burgers and sausage. The stadium itself was pretty simple. It holds about 60,000 and doesn’t have the mass of luxury boxes that other stadiums have. With that, everyone had a pretty good view. All was glorious until the kickoff. Then the Lions stunk up the joint. All I have to say is; I’ll give Schwartz the remainder of this year to get his poop in a group. Next year, no excuses. I hate the “same old Lions” talk but they lived up to that billing on Sunday. Every single offensive lineman had a penalty. We can’t point the finger at Peterman this time; they all stunk. Twelve fricken points! Sad. In addition, we had a nice surprise for us when we got back to the car. My official Molson Bike Tour/tailgating grill was gone, along with the post game chicken legs we were going to eat. I left it next to the car as you don’t want the burger/sausage/chicken smell permeating the upholstery while in the game. It isn’t the cost as the grill probably runs about $20; it’s just plain tailgating courtesy that you don’t swipe another man’s grill. So many experiences with that grill (cue the Karen Carpenter “Memories” tune). The people of Buffalo were great so I won’t let one bad apple spoil the bunch.

We made one last bar push when we got back to the hotel until I was sleeping in mid conversation. My internal gas tank was on empty.

People of Buffalo, thank you.

Trail Head