Saturday, September 27, 2008

We've landed in Kansas....

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks but the dust has settled and we are in our new location for the next couple of months. Left Virginia on Friday, the 19th and after 25 hours of driving, on Sunday afternoon we pulled into the campground in Coffeyville, Kansas. We are staying at the Walter Johnson park, here in the outskirts of Coffeyville. Very cute town...more services here than what we expected. We are in a back overflow lot with a few other rigs (more will be arriving over the next few weeks). We like it cause it's quiet and not so congested. I'll post some pictures of our site and the campground in the near future.



Sophisticated payment system for paying for your site.....If you arrive within one week of your start date with Amazon, you don't have to pay for any extra days.


First sunset, as seen from our rig....

Our original start date was to have been October 5th but our neighbors told us that another couple, who was supposed to start on Wednesday, had pulled out the day before we arrived. So, on Monday, when we went to Express Employment's office to do our paperwork, we asked if it was possible for us to start early. They checked and said that we'd start on Wednesday. This week is "hardening week" which means we only work 5 hour shifts. A time to get your body adjusted to long days on your feet and the aches and pains of lifting, bending, etc. Linda and I are in the "picking" dept. and we love it !! Once you're trained, you get to work on your own, pulling items from the huge warehouse, put them in totes and put the finished totes on a conveyor. We will be working a Wednesday - Saturday shift, from 5 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. So far, like I said before, we've only been working 5 hour shifts, finishing up at 10 p.m. The time goes by very quickly when you are working. I love seeing all the items that they sell. For our area, there is ALOT of walking...they told us we'd walk 10-15 miles each night. Our trainer walked over 13 miles the night before she started working with our group. The place is HUGE and they carry everything imaginable. Alot of the items I picked last night were CD's, books or movies. Nice to see that there is still a strong interest in the older movies. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, etc. but the most popular item that I picked last night had to be the Sex and the City DVD.......picked many of them for orders.
We have tonight off due to some maintenance they need to do at the factory so we have a long weekend. I will try and get some pictures this weekend and post them for you to see.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Here Comes Hanna.....

Am sitting at a Panera restaurant, posting this, as we got evacuated from the campground this afternoon. We've been staying at the Newport News campground all week and have really loved it. Ranger came around while I was up at the office doing laundry and said we needed to be out by 6:00 p.m. Luckily we had already hooked the truck up to the rig in case this same scenario would happen tomorrow while Linda is at work and I'd need to move on my own....just came a day early.
Within an hour we had everything loaded, tanks dumped and were headed down the road. We need to stick close by as Linda is supposed to work Saturday and Sunday at Busch Gardens (although a friend of mine called me and said that they will be closed tomorrow due to the storm).
We have parked in a plaza parking lot and will stay there tonight unless we get the dreaded knock on the door, from a security guard, in the middle of the night. If that happens we'll move over to the Wal-Mart nearby. That area was really busy when we arrived here earlier (couldn't be that "run out for the much needed milk and bread thing, could it ?"). The winds have intensified a bit with this storm and they are saying that winds will be 65 - 80 m.p.h. Glad our rig is really heavy !! Might be alot of rock and rolling going on tonight. So far it's only starting to rain and that comes in waves....
Just wanted to give folks an update since we've been without internet all week. We'll let you know what it was like to weather a tropical storm, in an RV, once I get access again. Till then we'll be playing lots of Skippo.