Flamingo on a Stick

It's Christmas and we have had little time to do do our usual Christmas Card and letter so in the interest of doing something we are posting it here on the blog and emailing it to family because many of them don't read the blog. It's been a wild ride this year. We worked more than usual: summer for the Kernels (baseball team) and fall for Amazon. We bought a new truck, hence the working thing. We spent the summer spending time with our kids and beautiful grandaughter. A splash of travel in there too and now off on new adventures with a cruise mixed in. All in all a good year and one that as usual has us counting our blessings. Included in that are all of you out there in blog-land, friends, family, and all who take the time to catch up with us once in awhile. Our lives are enriched by your presence in them. So to all we wish you a very Merry Christmas and the best of the New Year. We have a new favorite Christmas song this year and as a small gift we want to share it with y...

Our time with Amazon is almost over, our assignment here at Jeffersonville will end this Saturday. I am so glad. Now for Santa’s bag. Having worked at two facilities, one with everything under the sun and one with mainly clothes and jewelry I think we have a good feel for what’s high on everyone’s list. Little girls will be getting everything Frozen, from toys, to clothes to jewelry and watches. For little boys, Legos, Legos, Legos. They have the blocks, watches and t-shirts. For the guys, lots of tools, particularly DeWalt ones, lots of electronics. Women have the biggest market and it’s hard to say for sure but the most common clothing we pulled was leggings, lots of different brands. Then there is jewelry. Necklaces with all kinds of sayings are really big. The one I picked the most is “Love you to the moon and back”. I also saw some of the ugliest jewelry I have ever seen, sorry for those gals.  There are also the things everyone is getting: boys, girls, men, wome...

What a campsite??!! So one week down at our new job site. It’s been a little bit of a crazy schedule. Tuesday we had orientation and training specific to the building; most of it we already knew but navigation was the main issue. This building is huge, at least twice the size of the one in Campbellsville. They said until just this year it was the largest fulfillment center they have. It’s divided into two sides, East and West. Each has its own pick desk and start up area. You usually stay on one side or the other but occasionally will move if needed. We have been on the west side all week. I only know one work-camper who moved from one side to the other this week. This facility deals mainly with clothes, shoes and jewelry so much different than Campbellsville. However, just like Campbellsville, they are stuffing the bins so full it makes picking a challenge. The differences aside it has been a good move.  Rollercoaster anyone?? Our “campground” is the Kentucky Expos...

Snow on the Flamingo It's amazing how many changes can occur in just a couple weeks. Two big ones here. One’s the weather, like most of the USA we have been sent into the deep freeze (at least for central Kentucky). Today the high was 23 degrees and the low about 12. It is suppose to gradually get better over the week, so that’s some good news. We did get a little snow around the edges but really not much in the way of white stuff. Luckily most of the cold and rain/snow came on our days off. Now for the bigger change. Last week Amazon made an offer for 100 work-campers to move to Louisville to work in the Jeffersonville, IN (right across the river from downtown Louisville) fulfillment center. This is a center built only 2 years ago and is owned by Amazon. The facility deals mainly with clothes. The unemployment rate in Louisville is pretty low and there are an abundance of seasonal jobs there so they are having trouble getting enough seasonal workers for this peak sea...

We survived our first 10 hour a day week!  Not bad for two old folks. By the end of the day our feet and backs were paying the price but we did notice on day 4 (our Friday) it seemed a little better than the night before. Having done this once before we knew what to expect. The next challenge is mandatory overtime which begins next week. That means an extra 10 hour day and a 50 hour week. My guess is next week will be brutal and then a our bodies adjust it will get better.  So week 3 down, 6 more to go. This week John and I booked a cruise for January 3rd, so whenever it gets hard I’ll just remember the silver lining at the end of the tunnel. The cruise is to celebrate our 30th anniversary that we achieved last September 1st. We discussed options then but decided to wait until after our work stint and wait for a good price. We found both so we booked it. We will be leaving here and working our way to an Escapees park in Livingston Texas. It is close enough to Houston...

Peak color in Campbellsville KY Just a quick post as not much has happened. We survived our first 2 weeks with 5 hour days. It was fairly painless and all that picking knowledge started to come back pretty quickly. I like the training here and I’ve actually learned more about functions on the scanner that no one ever showed me at Coffeyville so hopefully that will speed me up a little. However, this week we get brand new scanners. The program is suppose to be the same or at least very similar but they are touted to be lighter and more responsive, that would be nice. Heartland Campground Tomorrow night we begin our 10 hour days and I am sure there will be some foot pain and exhaustion to follow. I think we will get at least one 40 hour week in before overtime starts but it won’t be long and we will be on 50 hour weeks. Our OT shift will be on Tuesday so our week then will be Tuesday thru Saturday.  Parked for a couple months Today we are going to take advantage...

Green River Lake We have settled in here at Campbellsville and are parked at Heartland Campground, a 10 minute walk to the entrance to Amazon’s Fulfillment Center where we have started working. Three years ago we worked for Amazon at their Coffeyville KS center. This facility seems a little better organized than Coffeyville and we are happy with our decision to come here.  We are working D shift which is 5:30 pm to 4 am. The first 2 weeks our days are Tuesday to Friday but next week it shifts to Wednesday to Saturday. First 2 weeks are also only 5 hour days but that jumps up to 10 hour days with the possibility of mandatory overtime of an extra 10 hour shift. We anticipate that from mid November to Christmas it will be 50 hour weeks. We did get our preferred job of picking so that is good. Picking entails lots of walking. Its not a hard job and John calls it being paid to lose weight, as we typically will walk at least 5 miles (sometimes as many as 10) in a shift....

We have arrived in Campbellsville KY and tomorrow we have our first day with Amazon. So for the next 2 months we will be back to the work world. On our pre-paper work it looks like we will will be on nights Tuesday thru Friday, and it looks like picking but we won’t really know until tomorrow. Whatever it is, we are ready to go. Campbellsville is actually a nice little town especially compared to Coffeyville KS where we previously worked for Amazon. This town actually has a decent selection of stores like Walmart, Lowes, JoAnn’s Fabrics, Penny’s and out our way is a new very nice Krogers. The campground is directly across the street from the warehouse so an easy walk. It really is just a gravel parking lot with hook ups but the family running it seems very nice and the laundry and community room are also in good shape. Most people camped here are working at Amazon so we are already meeting lots of nice folks.  Inside the visitors center of Wild Turkey Visitors cent...

Sunset on Lake Carlyle (new header photo also Lake Carlyle) Boulder Rec area Carlyle Lake After leaving the St. Louis area we drove a short hour plus to Carlyle Lake and Reservoir near Carlyle IL. Campgrounds here were beginning to close, several had their last day as we were driving in, so I first chose the Boulder Rec. Area on the east side of the lake. It was a little further from town than I expected but we were ready for some time away from the hustle and bustle. We enjoyed all our visits with friends and family but I was missing just easy laid back time for just the two of us. That is exactly what we got here. The weather was beautiful and we took walks and rode our bikes around the campground. I did some cooking which I also longed for, we had been eating out entirely too much. It was pretty much a perfect week to recover from a busy summer and get ready for our stint at Amazon. Nice sites along the lake The Boulder Rec. area is one of 5 COE campgrounds ...

Missouri Botanical Gardens Yep, one more post. I now have had more posts this week than during the whole summer. I think it just feels so good to be back on the road. It doesn’t hurt that the weather has been almost perfect.  Early in the week we got the bikes on the truck and took off to ride the Katy Trail. This is the longest rail trail in the US. I’ve heard a lot about it and wanted to get at least one day on the bikes. I found a good parking lot for us and then we rode both directions for awhile. I wanted us to stop and check out Trailhead Brewing near the St. Charles trail head. We had a hard time figuring out where it was exactly and before we found it we were hungry so we stopped at Hendricks BBQ for a bite to eat and a brew.  They had a great selection of craft brews that made it well worthwhile and a good brisket sandwich. Once fortified we finally found Trailhead brewing for just a brew. I have to say we were disappointed in the beers. The part of the tra...