the sticks vs wide spot in the road

the sticks

noun
  • A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks. 

  • The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball. 

wide spot in the road

noun
  • A very small and insignificant town or village. 

How often have the words the sticks and wide spot in the road occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )