Burt is finally able to save enough to travel by cargo ship to Los Angeles, working his passage as the cook, but when he arrives, he experiences bureaucracy, skepticism, and the indifference of big city people. It is his blunt but gregarious nature which overcomes each hurdle. He wins over the motel clerk, a transgender woman named Tina, who assists him in clearing customs and helps him in buying a car. The car salesman allows Burt to use his workshop and junkyard to build a trailer, and later offers him a job after Burt fine-tunes a number of the cars on the lot. Burt declines the offer, however, and shortly afterwards begins his long trip to Utah.