Sean had been telling me for awhile that he wanted to go running near the ocean so when I heard about the Cheetah Runners' Seaside 5K race in Long Beach, CA I knew we had to try and drive out for it. Luckily, our friend and dance game teammate Josh Thomas had moved out to Long Beach so we had a place to stay.
Working from home and for ourselves, it's hard to plan ahead but when the day before the race finally arrived we were once again lucky enough to arrange the free time to get the heck out of town, though we had to pay thr price for it by waking up at 7am after only 5 hours of sleep.
We started towards Long Beach around 2:30pm, making a few stops along the way. The first stop we made was in Jean, NV. During our Socal trip the week prior, we'd seen a sign at Gold Strike Casino there mentioning their new display of famous movie cars and their addition of a Denny's restaurant inside. After walking in though, we were sad to find that their new Denny's had replaced their buffet. Also, they'd removed DDR from their arcade, leaving Guitar Hero as their only music game. On the bright side, their movie cars, including quite a few vehicles from Fast and the Furious 7 and an old Batmobile, were cool to see.
Our next stop was at Buffalo Bill's in Primm, NV. Sean had been wanting to revisit their arcade for some time now so we went in to play a few credits on their PIU NX machine. Pads weren't amazing but we had fun and got a workout anyway. The machines had been rearranged a bit again but they still had their Guitar Hero machine and DDR Extreme as well as PIU. Someone left 2 songs on Extreme's 2P side so I played through those (and nearly failed due to the up arrow, I believe) while Sean was on PIU.
In Baker, CA, we exited for a restroom break at a 76 gas station with some chain restaurants inside. We usually stop at Valero but we thought we'd mix it up and I'm not sure I'd ever taken Sean to that 76 during our journeys.
In Barstow, CA, I took a minute to send the payment for our Seaside 5K race entries and get us registered to run the next morning. Then we got gas at the same Valero as the week prior, though it turned out gas prices were actually cheaper in Long Beach when we arrived.
I think it was around 10:30pm when we arrived at the hotel Josh's work had put him up at until he found an apartment or other acceptable accommodation. We got settled in and goofed off with him a bit before ordering a Pizza Hut Big Dinner Box with 3 rectangular pizzas inside for about $30 including tip. Normally, I don't spend $30 on pizza but it was worth it for the occasion, especially since we each got to customize a one topping pizza of our own! I chose some creamy parmesan pizza with some Asiago crust and bacon as my topping and holy shit...It was THE BEST PIZZA EVER. The guys got good ones too but mine was really THE BEST.
We really should've gone to sleep right when we arrived at the hotel but there was definitely no way we could show up at our friend's place for the first time and just pass out! Instead, we stayed up munching and hanging out and even downloaded some charades-type game called Heads Up, which ended up being way too fun and silly and occupying a good couple of hours of our night.
Finally, we realized if we didn't go to sleep then we wouldn't be going to sleep at all so we called it a night and Sean and I set up our own little spot to cuddle and catch some sleep on the floor. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep right away though and, as always, my pre-race nerves had me tossing and turning for a good hour or two, leaving me with a crappy 3.5 hours worth of sleep.
Day 2 - 8/22/15 (Seaside 5K):
We all woke up feeling crappy and exhausted around 5:40am. Sean and I got ready and reluctantly left the hotel, headed 4.2 miles away to the beach for our race. When we arrived, we said our hellos to the organizers, whom we hadn't seen since we did their Sunrise 5K race (our only other Cheetah Runners race so far) about a year prior. Then we did a tiny bit of warming up and it was time to run!
I usually go all out in a race and push til I have nothing left, barely leaving myself the mental strength to get my body to the finish line. I decided to take it easy this time though. I wanted to enjoy myself, not scare myself away from running too much, and leave myself enough energy to stay awake and enjoy the rest of the day. The route was a flat, easy, straight out and back one so that helped. It was a paved path, beach-adjacent, with a gorgeous view. I kissed Sean and wished him luck, put one of my favorite trance songs (For A Lifetime) on repeat, and went. I resisted the urge to keep up with the guys as they ran off and just ran at the easiest, most comfortable pace I could find. I stayed on my own that way for awhile, watching a small cluster of guys disappear into the distance ahead of me, til 2 more men and 1 woman finally began to creep up on me and pass me. I let them go though and maintained my comfortable pace, just listening to my song the whole time. For what I believe to be the first time, I didn't even start breathing hard or struggling at all til about 2 miles. For runners, 2 miles is usually nothing but for me it was pretty good! Lol I knew I only had one mile left then but I still didn't want to overdo it so I kept my slow pace, maybe even slowing just the tiniest bit more, til I got near the finish line. Then I hit the "next" button on my phone's music player to listen to one of my favorite fast songs at the moment (Lovelyteks) and sprinted to the end. I love the feeling of a sprint finish! Not sure if it really was a good strategy, whether the course was just super easy (though someone said it was actually 3.16 miles :p), or if I was somehow in better shape than usual but I somehow ended up getting my second best 5k time this way and even took 2nd place in the women's division with a gun time of 25:32. Sean had pushed and placed in his division as well, taking 3rd for the men (as well as overall) with a gun time of 20:52!
We cooled down and recouped then, eating some post race snacks and enjoying our goodie bags while stretching and snapping some fun pics.
Then it was time for race awards! They gave out medals for the top 3 males as well as top 3 females.
A free raffle they were doing with lots of neat prizes came next. We didn't win but we definitely couldn't complain! We'd only paid $22 each to enter the race, had had TOO much fun, had gotten to see the amazing and sweet Cheetah Runners organizers as well as runners again, got some yummy post-race treats, left with badass medals and a bag of goodies, and finally got to do the beach race Sean had been waiting for. Wow. Totally worth dragging ourselves out of the hotel for! Haha Thanks again, Cheetah Runners!!
After slowly hobbling back to the car, we made our way back to Josh's hotel. They had tea, coffee, hot chocolate, fresh fruit, muffins, granola bars, and more on the way in in the hotel reception when we got there. We got a couple of bits to take up to the room while we hung out there with Josh for a couple of hours. Then the 3 of us killed some time, Josh busted out some metal Red Octane dance pads to play a little Stepmania, and Sean and I relaxed for awhile.
When we were finally all ready and recovered enough, we headed out together towards Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles! They had a 35 minute wait when we got there but we made ourselves comfy at the bar, Josh got himself some Bloody Marys, and we were at our table ordering and eating in no time! :D
Then we decided to do something none of us had done enough lately: visit the beach! We drove to Newport Beach and spent the longest time ever finding free parking. We got a good spot though and, once parked, it was just a short walk til we had our feet in the sand. Josh did some sunbathing then while Sean and I went to play in the waves. Then Sean and I did some lounging in the sun ourselves. We cuddled up and wound up getting a nice nap and some funny sunburns simultaneously! Josh caught some Zzzzzs on the beach and played in the ocean a bit as well.
After a few beach hours, we were ready to start on our next activity: dance gaming in Irvine, CA. The DDR 2014 that'd been at Puente Hills' Round 1 had been temporarily moved to its next test location, Dave & Buster's in Irvine. We thought we'd go pay the machine a second visit (first visit for Josh), stopping at a couple of other spots on the way:
Boomers
3405 Michelson Dr
Irvine, CA
Sean hadn't been to the Boomers in Irvine since he'd visited the United States back in '08. They were serving as a test location for DDR X and Jubeat then and had DDR Extreme, DDR 4th Plus, and maybe a Beatmania or something as well. When I visited in 2011 or so (at least, I believe that's when it was), a few years after him and a few years before this trip, they'd removed their 4 panel dance games and just had PIU Fiesta EX and Guitar Hero, if I remember correctly. I hadn't been too upset when I'd visited though because I'd found a DDR machine in the Irvine Lanes bowling alley right next door. That machine was gone now too. When we went in Boomers again though, they still had PIU Fiesta EX and Guitar Hero. Fiesta EX's pads weren't great and, for some reason, the rear stoppers were removed so that both pads were leaning back on the floor. Better than nothing though. I'm finally starting to get into PIU now too and there were a couple of credits in the machine when we walked in so I couldn't really complain. :) We shared the credits, struggling to pass, and then updated ddrfreak and moved on to Dave & Buster's.
Dave & Buster's
71 Spectrum Center Dr # 960
Irvine, CA
I remembered stopping in that Dave & Buster's and the Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 theater before, probably on the same trip I'd visited Boomers on, and I remembered neither of them having 4 panel dance games. Edwards still didn't have any dance or music games. Dave & Buster's had a PIU NXA and 2 Guitar Hero machines, at least some of which had probably been there before (I'm too lazy to double check though), as well as the temporary DDR 2014 machine. Sappy, some other friends, and some randoms were waiting in a long line for DDR 2014 when we showed up but we managed to get a credit in together at one point and that was honestly more than enough for us. It was cool being able to say we'd played it there but it was too expensive and the line was too long for more than a credit. We did, however, play some PIU NXA. It was a DX cab with a replacement flat screen and mediocre pads. We had some credits and tickets on a couple of Dave & Buster's cards already, we loaded some more money on a card, and we found another couple of cards with tickets and credits on. We used some of the tickets to replace the Dave & Buster's shot glass I'd gotten a long time ago and saved the rest of the tickets and credits we didn't spend in PIU or DDR for next time.
It was time to refuel and chill after that so Josh, Sean, and I drove to a place near the hotel called Hiccups and got some boba. (Mung bean for me. I'd never had it before but it was sweet and really good!) Josh got some food to go there too and we took it back to the hotel where Sean and I munched on leftovers while we all started on some well-earned alcohol.
Things started getting pretty special then. We got on YouTube and spent most of the rest of the night looking up old rap and hip-hop songs, dancing around and doing some BAD karaoke to some of them, and playing more Heads Up. We had way more fun than a group of 3 probably should! Josh started falling all over the room and trying to drag us to the strip club after a couple of hours but finally we all managed to get simultaneously horizontal and go to sleep around 4am instead.
Day 3 - 8/23/15:
Somehow, we woke up around 10:30am. We stayed in the hotel for quite awhile before getting our day started though.
By the time we left, Sean and Josh were hungry so we drove the Chipotle and got them burritos. I think it was Sean's first, possibly second, time eating Chipotle but he really enjoyed it!
Josh was in the process of hunting for a new place to live and wanted to check out a place he'd found so we took him to see it then. It looked cool!
After that, we decided to take Josh to see a cool dance game spot he hadn't yet been to:
Fun Factory
531 N Francisca Ave
Redondo Beach, CA
We stopped at a 7 Eleven and a 99 Cent Store on the way to stock up on snacks and supplies. Then we drove to Redondo Beach, found some free parking, and walked a ways to the pier to visit the arcade. Inside, they still had their DDR Extreme as well as PIU NX, PIU Fiesta, and Guitar Hero. I think they might've had another PIU machine as well last time Sean and I visited but I'm too lazy to check and 2 was plenty anyway. Josh played a lot of DDR Extreme and Sean played a handful of Fiesta and NX. I joined Sean for a few songs but mostly just watched and hung out with him.
Time had really flown in Fun Factory so by the time we left it was just about time for Sean and me to start our drive back towards Vegas. We took Josh back to his hotel, said our goodbyes, and headed out.
On the way home, we stopped off the freeway to check out a place called Hawaiian Gardens Casino. It was kinda weird inside. Pretty wide open, medium sized, but it had no slot machines AT ALL-only table games. It had a bar, food, a gift shop, etc but it was no typical casino and didn't have anything we could benefit from at the time.
Our next stop was at an In-N-Out. I had to pee so we stopped and wound up getting a milkshake and a burger to share while there.
Somehow we accidentally put the wrong directions in our GPS after that and ended up backtracking a little and ending up at the Puente Hills Round 1 in City of Industry. Oh well! Since we were already there, we decided to stop in breifly. Sean had a quick credit on PIU Prime while I watched and then I had a quick credit on PIU Fiesta while he watched. While there, I noticed something I think I'd missed when we'd stopped in the week prior: they had the big grand piano keys game we'd seen and played at AMOA!
Back on track after Round 1, we started towards home again, finally pulling up to our driveway hours later in the middle of the night. Then it was time for some much needed sleep followed by working our butts off in preparation for our 3rd consecutive weekend Socal trip for the bonfire out friends were planning at Dockweiler Beach the following weekend!
