USRT California - Day 4
One of the most fulfilling and joyous parts of doing what we do is meeting and making friends with like minded sports travel enthusiasts like ourselves. People who are a little bit crazy like us, and definitely who we can share road trip adventure stories and commiserate with.
Last year around this time we got to meet two young fellas from Oceanside, California, who had saved up for years as teenagers to fulfill their lifelong dream - travel by car and visit all 30 NHL arenas, including a Sabres game at HSBC Arena. They completed their journey across the continent successfully in just 74 days.
Our introduction to Daniel Tsunekawa and Andy DiMento was innocuous enough at first; Andy’s mom Kathy stumbled across the USRT web site and emailed us, sharing the story of the two friends who would be coming our way and do we have any travel tips or suggestions.
We sprung into action, setting them up for a VIP welcome through our Sabres contacts at HSBC Arena, and also letting some of our media contacts at other NHL teams know they were heading their way. Once the guys got to Buffalo, we took them around town, made the obligatory visit to Duff’s for beef on weck and chicken wings, and the Sabres set them up with a video board intro and post game locker room passes.
The DiMento and Tsunekawa families were grateful for the help we rendered for their boys’ trip, and we promised that if we ever get to California we would be sure to look them up.Well that happy occasion happened tonight at the Elephant Room, a cool eatery in San Marcos just north of San Diego; Daniel’s parents and sister, as well as Andy’s folks joined the guys for a nice dinner and a celebration of the renewal of a good friendship forged through road tripping and the love of hockey.
We spent the evening enjoying a great meal, catching up on events in our lives this past year, talking hockey and of course what road trip adventures await. Daniel is chomping at the bit to hit the road again and travel; Andy groused that money is tight but yeah, he’s got the itch as well.
Peter is never one to skip a dessert, and he ordered up the chocolate chip oreo ice cream with whipped cream concoction… yeah he finished off this sucker too!
Daniel and Andy are heading up to Anaheim tomorrow to catch the Sabres/Ducks game, and they promise to bring on their karma for the Buffalo boys. We’re going to join up with them afterwards for some postgame libations (just soft drinks moms and dads we promise 
) near the Honda Center.
Our sports road trip fraternity just keeps on growing, and we are happy to have Daniel and Andy as part of this great posse!
