My Second Trip to the NJPW LA Dojo Part 2: Almost Flyin Off the Road in a Crazy Rain

Part 1

This chapter begins at the light rail station in Englewood, CO. Before I began my road trip to Los Angeles, I was on the light rail train heading to the now Ball Arena to see an icon in concert, Ozzy Osbourne. Stone Sour was pretty solid, but Ozzy was great as expected. A ton of his songs are iconic and are still some of my favorites to this day. On the crazy train back to my car, I added a few more of his songs to my playlist, with Over the Mountain being the 666th song added. I thought that was a pretty cool little thing, but later on in this story, this tribute to Ozzy would pay off. Once I had made it back to my car at around 11 pm, I took one turn onto Hampden Ave, then followed that until I hit Interstate 70 going west. I have said multiple times that the drive from Denver to LA is one of the best drives in the world. If you want an easy way to experience the highlights, American Truck Simulator is a solid option, but it does skip over quite a bit of the landscapes of the drive. (You can also watch the first part of my Las Vegas travelogue for some cool videos of the drive. You can also enjoy a nice, funky roadtrip I recorded in American Truck Simulator). However, with me leaving at night, I was going to miss out on a good chunk of that. Everything was going fine until I was about 30 minutes west of Morrison. What started as a light trickle very quickly became a torrential downpour as I attempted to traverse the curvy mountain roads at night. Luckily, it didn’t last long and my prior experience with this particular part of the highway allowed me to get through it unscathed. The fact that I didn’t fly off the mountain made me believe I had the Ozzman Himself watching over me. After a quick prayer to Saint Randy Rhoads, I made the sign of the pentagram over my chest, I continued on before stopping in Eagle for a little bit of sleep.

At 5:30 am, I did what I could to brush my teeth using a gallon bottle of water instead of a sink, and hit the road once again. I stopped for gas and snacks in Green River, Utah so I could get past the 100 mile stretch where there are no gas stations or anything. As much as I love my home state, it’s impossible to pretend that the portion of southern Utah where I-70 and I-15 run isn’t equally as breathtaking. During this stretch, I hit my second, even worse torrential downpour. The rain was so intense that I literally couldn’t see the lights on the semi truck directly in front of me, let alone anything else. When I say this storm was apocalyptic, I mean Noah himself would have said that his ark wouldn’t have been prepared for this. At one point, I even scraped the concrete barriers on the shoulder of the road because I literally couldn’t see them. After about 30 minutes of trying not to completely wreck my car, I finally made it through. Being done with driving for the day, I took the first exit that had a town with a gas station and took a nap in the parking lot. A few hours later, I said three hail Ozzy's and did the sign of the pentagram before hopping back onto I-70. I kept driving until it became I-15, then kept going. It always blows my mind that the junction of two of the most important interstates in America has literally nothing around it. I continued down I-15 south through a cool canyon in northern Arizona, then passed through Mesquite, Nevada as the sun was setting. I enjoyed the fiery orange sky as much as one can when driving directly into the sun. As the sun went down, as I crossed the hill. Vegas lit up, and the world got still. As much as I dislike Las Vegas, it’s an amazing place to drive through at night. Until you hit traffic at 1:30 in the morning. With the neon signs of Vegas fading in my rear view, I pushed through for the next hour until I stopped at a pretty cool rest stop called the Valley Wells Rest Area. I went and brushed my teeth and did my best to take a sink shower before heading back to the car for a bit of sleep. After a long, harrowing journey through the Mountains of Colorado and Utah, and the desert valleys of Nevada, I finally arrived in California.

I woke up at the Valley Wells rest stop at about 7:30 am. I used the restroom, then ran my head under the faucet again before hopping back into the car and continuing down the long 15 toward Los Angeles. It was a beautiful day. The sun beat down. I had the radio on, and I was driving. I felt so good, like anything was possible. I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes. The last few days, the rain was unstoppable. It was always cold, no sunshine. Before I knew it, I was coming down the gorgeous mountain slopes east of the L.A. metro area.

I tried to take my time getting to LA, but the traffic long before I got to the city helped me burn quite a bit of time before I could check into my Airbnb. On the way to Santa Monica, I decided to stop by the 24-Hour Fitness down the street from the dojo for a shower, a light workout, and another shower. During my workout, I found my way over to the free weight area where I ran into a familiar face. Stephon Smith, whom I met at the first camp and got to know a little as a fellow member of the In N’ Out Crue, was also at this gym getting in a workout. We exchanged a quick hello before continuing our workouts. Once I was done with my workout, I hit the shower and headed back to my car to finish my 1000 mile long road trip. I drove past the dojo before following my GPS directly into that infamous Los Angeles traffic. Eventually I made it to my Airbnb in Santa Monica. The next few days would be spent in one of the bedrooms of a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment in a building that was a 30 minute walk from the iconic Santa Monica Pier. The rental itself was shockingly affordable, but when I recently checked the price on apartments in that building, the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom units were running about $5000 per month (as of the writing of this blog post). I shudder to think what the one I stayed in would go for these days.

After a quick rest and unpacking session, I was on my way to the home of WrestleMania 21, the former Staples Center (I will not call it whatever dumbass name it has now). When planning this trip, I had heard the news of Lebron James signing with the Lakers and I noticed that I was going to be lucky enough to be in LA during the NBA preseason. I decided that even though I don’t care much for basketball, I’d spend a couple of bucks on a ticket and see what all the hype around Lebron signing to the Lakers was about. I arrived pretty late, and when entering the arena I was given a Lakers pride night shirt that was about 3 sizes too big. I threw it on and headed to my seat where I spent a good chunk of the game just kind of taking in the action. I had only ever been to 2 other basketball games before this so it was all still pretty unfamiliar territory. One of those games, I had been able to see Kobe Bryant in one of his first games back in Denver after the whole, Eagle, Colorado... situation, which was an experience to say the least. The other was the Harlem Globetrotters, which was a ton of fun. Even though I have limited experience with the sport, I was still in awe over how Lebron was able to completely take over the game. Having seen many of the legendary athletes in other sports in person (John Elway, Peyton Manning, Jerry Rice, Tom Brady, Shohei Ohtani, Etc), the way that they are able to make other pro athletes look like they are playing at a lower level is always mind blowing. After Lebron had been taken out of the game for the final time, I left and drove back to Santa Monica and prepared myself for the next three days.

On the next chapter: Day 1 of training begins, I give a well known restaurant chain a second try, and I try not to die of soreness. If you enjoyed feel free to take a look at all of my other stuff both on YouTube and right here on Giant bomb dot com. Thanks for reading, and always remember, Don’t let the bastards grind you down.