I woke up pretty early, got ready for the day, and decided it was finally time for a proper shower. I haven’t had one in like 5 days, and given I’m getting on a plane tomorrow I figured it was the… ethical thing to do.
I bought a Planet Fitness Black Card membership for $20 (monthly), which for unlimited access to any Planet Fitness gym in the world is not too bad of a deal. I didn’t really know how the shower process at a gym worked so I did some research and figured out as much as I could without actually being there.
I drove back into Lancaster, where Planet Fitness is, used the nearby Starbucks wifi to download the app and get my QR code to scan at the gym, and then headed to the gym. It was really busy inside, which made me a little nervous, but then I remembered that everyone is kind of just doing their own thing and doesn’t care about me, just like how I don’t really care about them.
I don’t like showering in “public” places like these, and it’s always a bit awkward for me, but I eventually got it all figured out, finished my shower, and was on my way in about 20 minutes. It felt great to finally not have greasy hair, and my hair dried very quickly in the desert sun.
I headed inside the same Starbucks that I stole wifi from earlier and did some work on my laptop, making further progress on the part of my website where these posts are actually going to go. At around 11 I asked a friend for suggestions on where to go in LA (even though she’s never been to LA), and she suggested the Hello Kitty Cafe. No. Her next suggestion was the California ScienCenter, a free science museum with lots of interactive exhibits. I thought that was a pretty good idea and got on my way.
I once again parked at Heritage Square station and rode the Metro A and E lines into the city, where it was just a 5 minute walk to the Science Center.
I spent about 2 hours inside, and while it was pretty cool, it was a little spoiled by the sheer number of children screaming and running around. I shouldn’t be surprised, given it’s a free science museum on a Sunday, but it was a bit annoying when kids would run into me or completely block the signs I was trying to read.
I learned that the big part of the building on the left actually houses the Space Shuttle, in its entirety, standing up, which is huge. They’ve been working on that part of the building for a while but it’s not yet complete, so I unfortunately couldn’t go see it. They did have a cool video of when they moved in through the streets of LA over 2 days through tight streets. Maybe next time I’m in LA it’ll be done and I can come again.
After I was done, I took the train back to the car and headed back to the Wildwood Rest Area that I stayed at a few days ago, since it was close enough to the airport and I already knew it was a good spot. On the way I stopped at a Domino’s since I had a craving for pizza, but because my mobile data has a Canadian IP address, the Domino’s website kept redirecting me to the Canadian site, even though I’m in America! This is an issue because the two are completely different, and you can’t order cross-border.
The only way I could get it to work was on my mobile data with a US VPN, hot spotting to my laptop, in an incognito tab. This usually wouldn’t be worth it, I know, but I really wanted the 50% off online coupon, and I also didn’t want to order in person.
As I was waiting for the pizza I went and filled up with gas, then came back, picked up my pizza and drove the last 5 minutes to the rest area. I ate my pizza while watching 240p YouTube videos, and then called it a night.