I woke up at the rest stop like normal, got ready for the day, finally reorganized my trunk to make things more accessible, and headed off for Los Angeles. Today I wanted to head downtown to mainly see the US Bank Tower, which I know from GTA V (I own a CEO office in the penthouse, but I don’t think they’d honour that in real life) as the “Maze Bank Tower”. I didn’t actually know what it was called in real life, so just for fun I put “Maze Bank Tower” into Google Maps, and the US Bank Tower came up!
The rest stop had a “pet area” sign, but behind it were some cows, which I thought was kind of funny.
I once again didn’t want to deal with driving or parking downtown, so I got to utilize the Los Angeles Metro system, which is actually pretty extensive. I searched for which one had free parking - Heritage Square - and headed that way.
I got there and was pleasantly surprised to see the parking lot basically empty, but I guess that makes sense for a Saturday. It likely fills up on work days from commuters heading into the city. As I finished setting up the payment pass on my phone (which was very easy, given they have integration with Apple Wallet, so it’s just a few taps) I heard the crossing bells start which meant a train was on its way. Currently, the A line trains only run every 15 minutes so I kind of really wanted to get on the train.
I ran for the platform, only to realize I was on the wrong side. I ran around, across the road (the crossing arms were up now) and onto the platform and tried to open one of the doors only to find it didn’t work. I thought the train had already begun leaving, but then the operator said over the speaker “use a different door”. It turns out the first 3 doors on that side of the train were out of order, but I eventually found one I could get in on and hopped on. Throughout all the commotion I realized I never actually paid my fare, so I just hoped no ticket inspectors would get on the train.
By the way, this photo is the actual train I got on.
I rode all the way downtown, and hopped off the train (which was now underground) to the classic “metro smell”, which I really like for some reason. In order to get to street level I had to take an elevator which was housed in a very cool tall shaft area with some art on the wall.
As I surfaced, I immediately saw what I’d come to see, the Maze- I mean US Bank Tower.
This part of downtown was surprisingly dead, with very little car traffic and virtually zero pedestrian traffic. I saw maybe 5 people all the way from the metro station to the tower. Once I got to the tower, it was actually pretty uninteresting. There’s not much you can do there since it’s obviously a private office tower, so I touched the base to say I’d done that, and then moved on further downtown.
It was much busier downtown, and I found myself a cafe where I sat and worked on yesterday’s entry (I’m not usually all the way up to date on these things) and did some looking around on Google Maps for where I wanted to go next.
LA is weird though. In the two hours that I was there, two different people were kicked out by the staff for being disruptive. The first guy was digging through the trash bins where all the lids and straws are, and yelled at the staff saying it was his trash. The second guy a bit later came in and for reasons I didn’t see, started giving the finger to the staff at the counter. When they asked why he was doing that, and asked him to leave, he kept giving them the finger and saying “I can give you the finger, it’s a free country”.
I recently discovered you can get a Porsche Taycan used (2022 models) for only $50,000 USD, which is actually remarkably cheap for a car like that, given they retail for about $80,000. This had me curious and I decided to pop over to the nearest Porsche dealer and take a look at one.
I figured this would be a good time to try a Waymo self-driving taxi. Last time I was in California I was still on the waitlist in San Francisco, but since then they’ve opened up the program to anyone. I called the car, which could pick me up in a few minutes a block away, and waited.
All things considered, the ride was pretty unremarkable. My car at home can do the same thing, so I didn’t really have that “mind blowing” experience that some people might get being in a car that drives itself. It cost me $10 USD for a 12 minute ride, which is actually cost competitive with Uber, even though it would have been much cheaper to take the bus and take only 20 minutes.
At the Porsche dealer, I asked if there was anyone I could talk to about the Taycan, and she said she’d check to see. A few minutes later she came back and told me they were all pretty busy right now and there wasn’t anyone available to see me. It’s a shame, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I can see the car another time back in Vancouver pretty easily. Though I do wonder if they assumed I wasn’t a buyer given my age + outfit (jeans, tshirt, backpack).
Regardless, I headed to the nearest Metro station which was just around the corner, and headed back to the car. I still had another destination to go and see: the Lancaster Musical Road!
I got back to the car - properly paying my fare this time - without issue, except for a guy at the station who tried to sell me a newspaper and a few minutes after I said no, tried to put it in my backpack pocket while I wasn’t looking (but I noticed before he could and walked away).
The drive to Lancaster was only an hour and was pretty easy, except for it being over some big mountains which my car doesn’t like. The Lancaster musical road is a road with groves laid out with the right separation so that when you drive over it, it creates musical notes. Sort of. The main issue is that it’s actually completely out of tune and sounds pretty terrible. If you’d like a proper explanation of why, there’s a great Tom Scott video on it which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0
Despite being out of tune, the experience of driving over the musical road was pretty neat, and I looped around a couple of times to hear it again. Afterward, I headed back into Lancaster to plan my next move.
I picked up a pair of sandals from a local dollar store (an experience that further confirmed my belief that Americans really are more rude than Canadians) so that when I shower at a Planet Fitness tomorrow, I don’t have to walk on the floors with my bare feet. I figured I should shower before I get on a plane with a hundred other people, as a general courtesy.
I realized I was really close to “California City”, a city that, while somewhat developed, never reached the full potential that its creators hoped it would, and so it has a ton of abandoned dirt roads that were never turned into paved neighbourhoods. It looks pretty cool in satellite images if you’re interested.
I found a spot off of Highway 58 on a frontage road that led to a paved cul-de-sac type turnaround which was a good spot to settle in for the night. That’s where I am now, and despite a bit of highway noise and some very strong wind gusts, it’s actually a pretty decent spot with usable cell service.