Well, well, two weeks into the new year and two road trips have come and gone.

As noted previously, my 20 year old daughter attends Niagara University. Her twin brother attends the State University at Buffalo. He had to be back to school before her dorm opens for the new semester. She and I decided “road trip!”

We left home around 11 am yesterday, Jan 11th. By 2:30 pm, we had dropped Andy at UB and were on our way to see how many things we could do before our athletic destinations.

We made a stop at the campus store at Niagara. Books for the upcoming semester were purchased for under $100. There are two books still outstanding so another $75 or so and this will be a cheap book semester.

We made a visit to Campus Activities to visit friends of Lei’s. This is always a favorite stop of mine. I love the CAO staff!

Then, it was a sneak up into her room to leave the books. My suggestion if we could get in the dorm as it meant one less thing to forget to pack.

Then, off to shop. I had promised her a trip to Steve & Barry’s as we don’t have one near us at home. She got a new pair of jeans and new running shoes. I got her 13 year old brother a pair of jean as well as a pair for myself.

We had a quick dinner at Wendy’s before finding a parking place with our ultimate getaway from campus in mind – which would be at about 11:30 pm as we were staying for the 9 pm basketball game.

A very windy walk over to Dwyer Arena put us at our first athletic event – the Purple Eagles of Niagara against the Colonials of Robert Morris in men’s ice hockey. Having watched two Purple Eagles’ games last weekend, I have to say that last night’s was probably the best of the three. I don’t say this because the end result was a 7-2 win but because it was by far the most physical and well-skated of the three games.

After the seventh goal was scored, we headed over to the Gallagher Center to watch the basketball game – Niagara against Siena

The game was the third straight sell-out of the Gallagher Center. I got one of the last three tickets available. We couldn’t find seats but did find some of Lei and Michael’s friends in the student section. We stood the entire game. It was close but not close. It was college basketball at its best.

The end of the road trip was leaving Niagara at 11:30 pm and heading for the four hour ride home. Lei had had me drive up and do all our driving around so she could stomach the drive home. We made a quick stop at Pembroke Service area on the NYS Thruway and then one quick one at her oldest brother’s in East Syracuse. Lei and I were tucked tightly into bed by 4 am.