Friday, 24 May 2019
My main goal today was clean clothes. My secondary goals were a grocery store and a liquor store. So off to Hillsboro we went.
Before we left the campground I stopped to dump off our trash and to dump out the sewage tanks. We couldn't have been there more than 15 or 20 minutes and during that time I saw 4 campers come in to the park to register. This is at 9:30 in the morning. Seemed a bad omen.
I'd found a coin laundry online (it's surprisingly difficult to locate these things because search engines think dry cleaners instead of laundromats) and learned that it actually exists in real life - yea. While I was loading my washer I heard the laundromat owner agree to sell it to a fairly insistent (in a low key way) buyer. Not something I expect to hear in a typical laundromat visit. No ambiance but decent machines.
As we passed through Hillsboro the other day, I'd noticed a small grocery store on one of the main streets so that's where we went today. Turned out to be a good grocery. They had almost everything on my list, including the brands I look for.
Speaking of which, as far as I can tell, Ohioans aren't particularly interested in what they eat. When I've been looking up grocery stores anywhere in the state - including in the big cities - almost all I can find is Kroger and Walmart and Save-A-Lot, none of which strike me as catering to upscale tastes. I don't go to Walmart if I can help it and don't like to shop at stores with names like "save a lot" so I've been seeing a lot of Kroger this month. And all their stores have all the same products, which is a selection I'm getting tired of.
The Hillsboro grocery was a Community Market and I was impressed. Refreshing.
Finding a liquor store turned out to be more of a challenge. An online search turned up Larry's Party Shop and Rite-Aid as my choices in town. I decided the Rite-Aid popping up must be an instance of a store that actually sells beer and wine getting listed in a search for liquor. That's happened every time I've tried to find one in Ohio. So I went for Larry's.
First, the store fronts almost right on the road and it only has 10 or 12 parking places that are all straight-on parking. Well, I can't really do that because there's no way I could back out into a busy street and expect not to hit something, so I'd need to come up with an alternative plan. Second, I got there immediately after an enormous Budweiser truck pulled up in front, taking up most of the parking places anyway and leaving me no room to maneuver into the remaining ones. I saw a big parking lot next door at the Senior Center, but it was nearly full and I was afraid to try to get away with taking up several of the remaining spaces. There was a completely empty parking lot across the street, but once I got there I saw the sign saying it was private property and I'd get towed. I knew that was unlikely to happen in the short amount of time I expected to be gone, but there's no point in asking for trouble.
So I drove around the block a couple of times and then, on the third pass, I saw the Bud truck pull out so I raced over and spent several minutes trying to back into a couple of spaces in front. When I got done, I found I'd parked about 5" from the roof of the building. But I was mostly off the street.
And then inside I learned that Larry (who was there) is really only interested in selling beer. He had a small selection of wine that would have been fine for non-wine drinkers, but I couldn't find anything I was willing to buy. He had a few bottles of some kind of vodka I'd never heard of. Otherwise what he had was beer. So I told the clerk what I was really looking for was scotch and she immediately said I should go to the Rite-Aid. And gave me directions only a local could understand.
But I found the Rite-Aid and, sure enough, they had a fairly decent liquor selection. Mostly bourbon, but they had other stuff too. So weird buying a bottle of Cutty Sark in a standard Rite-Aid milieu.
While I was waiting in line to pay, I heard 2 locals talking about someone and one of them said, "She was raised up here so she knows all about it." I've never heard that expression before. When I was "growing up" I was "raised" in central Texas, but I never heard of anybody being "raised up." I guess that's what they do in Ohio.
While I was driving around trying to find places I passed Bell's Opera House, built in 1895. Remember I said the other day that it looked like Hillsboro once had money floating around in it? It seemed to me that an opera house would be a good sign of that.
Back at the campground, I found the place teeming with people. Mostly kids. Riding bicycles and tricycles and those automated skateboards (the ones that keep catching fire) and various other vehicles. Bouncing balls and generally making a lot of noise. Sounds like they're having a really great time but it's the sort of thing that terrifies Gracie.
I'd walked the dogs before I brought them back here, just to limit the amount of time we'd have to spend with the crowd, and I turned on the air conditioner (it had gotten hot again today) to drown out the ambient noise, and put on a dvd. I kept a close eye on the crowd, and around 6:00 it looked like most people were eating hotdogs or something (i.e. not walking their dogs or running around), so I took my dogs out for a short before-bed walk. And went to bed early. Very early. Around 7:30. I'm sure my neighbors are starting to wonder about me.
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