Kentucky - Day 1 - errands in Louisville

Louisville KOA
Tuesday, 1 October 2019

today's route

Today was errand day.  I ended up traveling on only the interstate and a road called Outer Loop so can't claim I've seen much of anything about Louisville.

CVS
My first stop was at a CVS to drop off the prescription I'd wrested from the clinic doctor in Springfield a week or so ago.  They said they'd get it filled in an hour or so, so off I went for other errands.

Recycle Center
Next was a recycle center where I learned that the city of Louisville wants to make doing the right thing as painless as it can - when I drove in, 4 young attendants jumped up and hurried over to help me unload all my recyclables - which actually consisted mostly of a grocery bag's worth so only 2 of them got to do anything.  But the other 2 helped the second car that pulled in beside me.  I got the impression they were bored with no customers and delighted to have something to do.  Louisville has 12 of these centers around town.

Walmart
Then I stopped at a Walmart, which tells you how desperate I was.  I had several problems I hoped they could solve.  After I'd left the recycle center and it was too late, I'd realized the stopper for my bathroom sink had almost certainly fallen into the bag of recyclables and was now irretrievable.  Which left me (a contact lens wearer) with a dire need for a stopper.  I'd heard Walmarts have an RV section.  But this one didn't.  They sold me an ordinary rubber plug with a ring on it - 3 in assorted sizes for $1.98.

And I needed a cat carrier that was unlikely to have the bottom fall out of it when I took 11-pound Lily to her vet appointment.  The only one they had was $32 and approved for airlines but looked designed mainly for small dogs, not heavy cats.  So I left it and hoped to find one at PetsMart.

And I needed groceries - especially decaf Colombian coffee.  Which Walmart didn't have.

Once again I'm mystified about why Walmart is so popular.  They had large selections of some things (e.g. yogurt) but none at all of other, ordinary things.  No Lean Cuisine at all, for instance.  Stouffer's and Marie Callender were it for name brand frozen meals.  Very small produce section.  I heard a lot of extremely strong regional accents, though, which were interesting.

I was desperate enough to go there in the first place because as far as I could tell online, my alternatives were Kroger's (which pushes its own brand to the near exclusion of others), ALDI's (ditto), several small deli-type stores, and a whole slew of ethnic stores - mostly SE Asian, but also Indian and Hispanic.  More of those than non-ethnic stores.  Too bad Walmart didn't work out as I'd hoped.

PetsMart
I went on to PetsMart and found a cat carrier much like the one at Walmart but specifically designed for cats.  They also had the cardboard kind like I've been using for years, but the PetsMart employee who was helping me offered her employee discount if I wanted to get the fancy kind.  I figured it might be more likely to hold up to both Lily's weight and life in an RV, so I did.

Banfield
Then took it out to Lily.  She's tuned to the cardboard set-up and was caught off-guard, so I got her in without much trouble.  Turned out that she liked the carrier.  It had heavy-duty mesh on all sides and we could see she was lying down comfortably, looking around her.  I guess I'd like a room with a view more than a windowless box too.  She got her claws clipped and her flea medicine applied, and I parted with $18 and called it a bargain for not having to do it myself.  Of course they reported that she was no trouble at all.  Of course she wasn't.  Kids never are with people other than their parents.

By the time I got out of Banfield with Lily, it was mid-afternoon and really really hot.  I was exhausted and worried about leaving the pets in the heat of the RV and decided to call it a day.  I still have half my grocery list that Walmart didn't have, and a Kroger was nearby, but the heat was just too much, so I guess I'll try another day. 

And after all that, I didn't remember to pick up my prescription until I was almost back at the campground.  I'll have to go back tomorrow.  So a not unsuccessful day and a lesson that I should plan to do things earlier in the day when it's still cooler.