After recovering briefly in the zoo gift shop, Poppy and Alex continue to the Cabazon Dinosaurs. They take photos and wander the grounds, but Alex still looks drained, and the gift shop inside the dinosaur is almost as hot as the car and Nikolai’s apartment. Because it is only four in the afternoon and Poppy is anxious to keep the day going, she quickly searches for another activity.

Poppy drives Alex to the Moorten Botanical Garden, only to discover it closes early in the summer. When Alex suggests going back to the apartment to see whether the air-conditioning has been fixed, Poppy refuses and says she has one more plan. She takes over the driving and tries to turn a self-guided architecture tour into the next stop, but Alex is too hot, tired, and unenthusiastic to enjoy it, and the tour stretches into hours of aimless driving and a cheap dinner chosen partly for its cold air.

By evening, Alex finally stops Poppy and admits he feels carsick and cannot keep looking at houses. Poppy defensively says she thought Alex loved architecture because of how he behaved in New Orleans, but Alex can only say that maybe he does and that right now he is exhausted. When Poppy checks for a message from Nikolai and still has no update about the broken air-conditioning, she suggests one last option, the air museum, but even she realizes it is too late. Defeated, she gives up and lets Alex drive them home.

On the way back, the car gets a flat tire. Alex plans to change it, but the car has no spare, so they have to call a towing company, ride with the tow-truck driver Stan, handle the paperwork, and order an Uber, all while sitting in strained silence. Their driver, Marla, gets lost and then traffic stops near the Desert Rose, so Poppy and Alex get out and walk the rest of the way along the dark roadside. The miserable day ends with a small release of tension when Alex says he is getting into the pool even if it is closed, and Poppy agrees.