Now that we have settled in at our home for the next three months in Mesa, Arizona, I finally have time to catch up on the past two months.
Working at Amazon and seeing the sights in Louisville
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| Outside the Campbellsville, KY Facility |
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| Outside the Jeffersonville Facility - 1.2 million SF!! |
In mid-November, Amazon asked for 100 campers to move north to Clarksville, IN. The incentive offered was a $500.00 bonus per worker. It sounded good but we were comfortable where we were and decided to take a pass. There were only about 35 campers who agreed to make the move north so Amazon decided to up the offer to $1000.00 per camper willing to make the move - that was an offer we couldn't refuse. Unfortunately there were about 80 other people who felt the same and we received a call that we hadn't made the cut but were first on the waiting list. One hour later, two people had dropped out and we were in - YAY!
We moved up to Clarksville, IN on Saturday, 11/22 and settled in at the KOA. Clarksville is just across the Ohio River from Louisville, KY and about 90 miles north of Campbellsville.
Our first day of work in Indiana was Tuesday, 11/25 with orientation and some training. We worked from 7:30 until about 3:30. We began working 10 hours (6:30 am until 5:00 pm) the following day and continued thru Sunday. Our shift was Wednesday - Sunday, 10 hours a day. We worked wherever they told us. We re-binned, packed, gift wrapped (yuk!) and prepped jewelry. We both liked re-binning the best, we pulled items from totes, scanned them and placed them into the appropriate slot on a "re-bin" cart. There were 5 shelves and five slots on each shelf and each slot represented orders with multiple items. We were continuously on our feet but we were moving and bending a lot and it was the easiest job on our bodies. I wore my Fitbit a few days and found that I averaged 5-6 miles walking a day. This job was hard, standing for 10 hours is hard on the feet and back and most nights I crawled into bed around 8:00 with the intention of reading for a little while and never getting past a few pages. We were up at 5:00 am every morning to start the fun all over again.
The job I liked the least was "tote turning". It is exactly what the name implies, you stand by the conveyor belt and turn the plastic totes from vertical to horizontal. And, when it gets real busy, you get to take the totes off the conveyor belt until there is room and then place them back on the belt - whoo-hoo! Unfortunately for me there were maybe 4-5 totes every 10 minutes, talk about boring. I did go to talk to the supervisor to see if I could be switched somewhere else but was told that this was a very important job and I needed to stick with it. Luckily I only needed to "stick with it" for one day!
We didn't spend all our time working (even though it felt like it). We spent an evening driving with our Camperforce friends, Herman and Linda thru the Mega Cavern to enjoy "Lights under Louisville". Here's a link to the Mega Cavern, it's pretty incredible; at Christmas they decorate with lights and you can drive through and take pictures - it's about a mile long. http://www.louisvillemegacavern.com/about/history.html
We also used one of our days off to visit Churchill Downs and Cave Hill Cemetery. Churchill Downs is home of the Kentucky Derby which we learned on our tour is the longest, continuous running sporting event in the U.S. It has run on the first Saturday of May for 140 years without a miss - pretty amazing!
There are plaques on buildings throughout Churchill Downs listing each year and the horse who won. In 1915 a filly named Regret won; she was named Regret because her owner wanted a stallion. I'm sure he was happy with having a filly after she won. In the 140 year history of the Derby only three fillies have won.
Here's a link, if you'd like to read more.
http://www.cavehillcemetery.com/
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| The best part of working is making new friends. Mary with Herman and Linda |
Back on the Road
We were "released" (their words) from Amazon on Saturday, 12/20 and we hit the road west towards
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| Yay, Marty!! |
The flat tire did delay us about 2 hours (we did have to eat at Arby's after all) and by the time we got to our stop for the night - St. Francois State Park in Bonne Terre, MO it was dusk and misting. We were the only ones in the park, that was kind of creepy with the mist and all.
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| Looking at ultrasounds |
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| Marty, Mary, Katie, and Paul |
Again, on Wednesday, we had no idea where we would end up. We made it to Amarillo, Texas and stayed in another campground right off I-40. This one was a step up from the one in Tulsa but, again, we only needed it for one night so it didn't matter. We arrived in Amarillo around 3:00 so we had some time for a little exploring and decided to visit the Cadillac Ranch at sunset.
When we woke up on Friday the ground was snow covered but the streets looked ok and we definitely didn't want to be stuck there for the day so we headed out. The RV GPS told us to take I-40 to Holbrook, Arizona and then take roads southwest into Mesa but when we looked at the atlas we weren't so sure that this would be wise. Luckily before we left we walked over to the nearby gas station and met another couple driving with their Montana. They were also headed to Mesa and were going the way our GPS wanted us to go. The man assured us that they had done it many times and we'd be fine and it was a much shorter way than taking I-40 to I-17 so we crossed our fingers and decided to try it.
Once we got on I-40 we again were second guessing our decision. The road west into Arizona was snow and ice-covered and we saw two rv's lying on their sides plus two cars in ditches and one overturned semi - YIKES! Marty drove very slow and easy and we made it into Arizona where we stopped at the welcome center.
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| Welcome to Arizona! |
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| At Wrigley West |
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| Good Life RV Resort |
We took it easy on Sunday, walked around the park and met a few of our fellow workkampers. We meet our new boss, Leighann, tomorrow and start working on New Year's Eve.
See you next year!
