Jackson, MS

We left Tunica this morning and ended up at Le Fleur’s Bluff state park in Jackson, MS. We got the old people discount and it cost us $13 for the night. Only about 38 sites, but most are on the water and it is very pretty. We, along with the Chapman’s had our happy hour after arriving which was about 2 pm.

Here are a couple of picture of the area. It really very nice.

 

 

Oh, by the way, for those of you in cold weather, it was 58 and sunny and we sat outside for happy hour….cocktails and snacks

love ya

Jim and Linda

Tunica, MS

When we got to Tunica it was 48 degrees and sunny!!!!! It was supposed to get into the mid 50's yesterday and sunny....not......the wind was blowing 10-20mph and it was cold, not near as cold as Campbellsville, but cold. Yesterday evening it started warming up, and this morning it was 54 at 7:30am. But overcast.
I am not having great luck at the casino. I am slowly losing....you know, win some lose more.

Great news is that the Chicago Bears clinched their division last night!!!!

GO BEARS

have a great day
love to ya
Jim and Linda

Done with Amazon

Hi All

Our last day of work was Friday, the 17th. Amazon released us early, and we still get our $250 each bonus.

 

That was the only reason we stayed. It was damn cold in Campbellsville. RV’s are not made for really cold weather. Lots of folks had problems with frozen water lines in their rigs. Lots of them do not know how to deal with cold weather in an RV. During the coldest part,  it was down to 5 degrees!!! We had two electric heaters, a 600btu propane heater and our 35000btu furnace going. We kept lower cabinet doors open and ran a fan in the cabinets to keep water lines from freezing. We went thru a 30 lb ( 7 gallon ) propane tank in about 30 hours!!! The average was about 48 hours.

 

We, along with Jim and Bobbie Chapman, went thru several scenarios about when we would leave, and on Friday after a few cocktails we decided to leave about noon on Saturday.

All was going well…we got everything stowed for travel, got the rigs hooked up and I pulled off of my site first, to give Jim more room to maneuver. When he tried to leave his trailer brakes were locked up…After a number of attempts to move he unhooked the electric line from the truck to the trailer and he was able to move. He called the local RV dealer and was told that sometimes you can back up the trailer and the brakes will release. Tried that. Several times. Finally the RV park owner, Rocky, came over to help and troubleshooted (is that a word) the problem. The electric lines that ran under the truck had gotten pinched between the frame and a spring hanger and shorted out. With lots of help he got the line out and cut out the bad parts and re-spliced the line. We were good to go!!

We spent the night west of Nashville having only driven about 150 miles. But it was late by now and we were all tired.

Sunday morning we get ready to leave and our bedroom slide would not come in…..no power to the motor. I could not find the problem and had to unhook the motor from the gear train and Jim and I pushed the slide in. Now without the motor to hold it in, it would come right back out going down the highway. We cobbled together a couple of 2x8’s to make a temporary block to put between the slide and the trailer wall and headed towards Tunica, MS.

We got here with no additional problems and our friends Rose and Leroy were also here.  Leroy ran a major gas station and did mechanical work all his life so he started trouble shooting   my problem and found a fuse that I could not find. It was bad. Today I will get some fuses, get the motor hooked back up and we will be good to go. 

Maybe now we can enjoy a couple of days of nice 55-60 degree weather before heading towards southern Alabama for a while

It was 48 degrees and sunny when we got here and all four of us just enjoyed the warmth. We stood outside and had a few beers to celebrate.

Merry Christmas to all of you

we love you, each and every one

Jim and Linda

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Hello our dear friends

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner with about 65 fellow “Amazonians” and fellow campers here at Indian Ridge. Other campgrounds in the area were not so fortunate as we have a large building that will hold everyone. Everyone pitched in $2.00 for the turkey and ham and than brought a dish to pass. We made 5 lbs of potatoes.

As is usual here, there was lots of apple pie (liquid kind) being passed around. Our host Rocky is a very wonderful person, as is his wife, and he makes the apple pie and sells it to guests.

You can also buy the clear liquid that comes out of the hills, by the gallon, or quart.

It contains one quart apple juice, one quart apple cider cooked for a while with some cinnamon sticks. When it is ready to put in the mason jars about 25 percent of the “clear liquid” is added. It really does taste like apple pie.

Here are a few pictures of the spread:

 

Our dear friend Jim Chappy’s birthday was yesterday as well, once every seven years it falls on Thanksgiving day.

He helped by carving the turkeys (3).

The turkeys were deep fried and were done to perfection

  and as a birthday present Rocky gave Jim a pint of apple pie

Now where else could you go, but the Kentucky hills and have the bathrooms done in galvanized corrugated metal and pressure treated 2x4’s….even an old fashioned urinal….boy do I miss those!!!! No mess on the floor from guys who think “it” is a lot longer than “it” actually is.

We hope that your thanksgiving was wonderful and you ate too much and felt miserable, like we did….hummmmm…maybe it was the apple pie that made us feel that way

You know we love you.

Jim and Linda

Foggy Morning on the ridge

We are staying at Indian Ridge campground, and it really is on a ridge. We moved to a different site about a week ago and have a great view of the valley below out of our back window. On this side of the ridge it is a straight drop of about 300 foot down to the river and the valley.

I took these pictures this morning of the fog.

Hope you have a great day today

Remember to thank a vet…..today is Veteran’s day….you are free because we cared

love ya

Jim

A four letter word

WORK

We started work last Tuesday. We are both working 11am to 4pm  Monday-Friday. We are working in quality control and we count the items in the bins to verify that they are correct. The days go fast, but there is a lot of bending, stooping, walking, and for vertically impaired people stepping up on a stool or step stool to reach higher areas.

The plant is enormous….850,000 square foot on the main floor. That is approx. 17 football fields. It is about 50 foot high and some areas have four levels of storage. There are over 17 miles, yes miles, of powered conveyors. There are millions of things here….if you can imagine it, it is probably here. Including some porno stuff. I came across my first one the other day….male porn stars nude calendar, ….moved on real quick!!!

In the next two weeks they will be bringing in about 2000 additional workers for the “peak”, which starts on Thanksgiving.

There are about 450 work campers here, and apparently Amazon loves us….because we have: good work ethic, are reliable, do not steal, show up every day. People from the temp agencies do not have those qualities.

We started 2 weeks later than we thought, but are working 5 hours more each week, so it should work out in the end.  It pays $9.90 per hour, plus free camping and electric, plus a $250 each bonus if we stay till the end, plus we will get $50 each for two friends that we recommended if they also stay till the end. The end is Dec. 23rd and we will stay here until the 25th and have Christmas with our friends here.

Everyone is tired at the end of the day, especially those that are working the 10 hour normal shift. Linda and I are both tired and Linda has has some sore back problems. For me, my hamstring muscles are sore because of the way I have to get into the lower bins, which are on the floor. The highest bins are about 75 inches up. The basic shelving is about 4 foot wide and 7 foot tall, divided into 7 rows high and several rows wide. There can be up to about 75 bins in a row and up to about 150 rows in one section and go up 4 stories high.

Material comes in on trucks and the skids are broken down and boxes put on conveyors where they go to the “receivers”, who open the boxes and scan each item in the box. They put the parts on carts and “stowers” take the carts and using their scanner put the parts in the bins. Stowers walk several miles a day. “Pickers use their scanner to get parts from the bins and put them in bins that go onto the conveyors to go to shipping. Pickers walk 11-15 miles a day and more. Shippers put the parts in boxes, but the labels on and put them on another conveyor where they go to the “sorters” who take the boxes off the conveyors and put them in area appropriate boxes that go to whatever shipper the customer specified…UPS, USPS, or other.

The computer system must be huge, as everyone in the building has a scanner that is used to show the current location of any item and there are hundreds of workers now.

See ya

Jim

Corvette museum, Makers Mark and other stuff

Last week we went to the Corvette museum with Jim and Bobbie, about an 80 mile one way trip. Great museum, if you like Corvette’s,….me I am a Mustang guy. But lots of really great cars to look at and the displays were very well done. We did enjoy the museum and went out to “Ryan’s buffet” afterwards, and than a liquor store…..Taylor county is a dry county, so you have to get booze when you can.

You know what…….after writing all this, I remembered that I had already told you about the corvette museum….duh

So anyway, here is the rest of the story

Makers Mark is one of several distillery’s of Bourbon whiskey in this area….we went there because they give out free samples….I really felt like a traitor, because those of you who know me know I am a Jack Daniels lover…..but it was a great tour and the drive over Kentucky’s back roads was very nice. Lots of old farms and falling down barns and hills and twisty turney roads. this is where they dip the bottles

this is a “mash” vat, holding about 11000 gallons of Mash, which is where the water, yeast barley malt and other stuff come together.

this is the great water that all good whiskey’s need

  and these are pictures of one of the barrel storage warehouses….there are a lot of them(around 27 I think) and the whiskey ages in these charred barrels for about three years…..very similar to all of the other distilleries.

Afterwards we did a tasting, and when Bobbie decides to do another post, you will see Linda’s reaction to the tasting……amateur!!!!!

 

 

Saturday they held the Halloween party here…..Why could the witch not get pregnant????? her husband had a hollow wennie……har, har, har…..that joke is older than me.

I bet you have never been to a party where they have an auction and auction off Moons…e   (that last work is shine, but I do not want the revenues to know that) '.

Several batches of “apple pie” ,blueberry pie, and blackberry pie, and actually one gallon of the stuff. Has a great taste.

Lots of good costumes.

this is the apple pie going down very smooth…..even Linda liked it.

That almost brings you up to date, I will tell the Amazon story in another post

You know that we love you, even when you do not write to us…….but we would love you more if you would write……

Jim and Linda

The STORM and other stuff

Hi dear friends

We finally got our notice for what they call a "meet and greet" for Monday. Thats where we go to meet all of the Amazon people, get picture taker for badge, and get questions answered. Also find out when we work and where.

Wednesday we went with Jim and Bobbie to the Corvette museum in Bowling Green, about a 75 mile drive. Nice museum with lots of nice cars...than on to Ryan's buffet for a late lunch.

The big storm that went across the country caused a lot of wind here but no damage...the people working at Amazon were sent to the tornado shelter, but here at the campground we were able to stand at the edge of the cliff and watch the storm coming in.

Here are a couple of pictures of our campsite on the side of a hill. I was rather exciting getting onto the site as the trailer tipped way over coming in...the front bottom of the trailer damaged the rub rail on the top of the truck bed...

I am posting this not using live writer, so the picture are all going to the top of the page so you will have to figure out which ones are which....should be easy. Next time I will not be so lazy, and use live writer to do the post.

Hope you have a great weekend

Love to all of you

Jim and Linda

Campbellsville, Kentucky

Hi All

We decided Monday evening that we would start heading north to Campbellsville. Got here yesterday after 820 miles driving in two days.....that is a lot for us.

The campground we are in is old and hilly, and the site we are on I should have never got us on. Not sure how we will get out of it.

But, we are here with old and new friends. Had our first happy hour yesterday after Jim and Bobbie got home from work. Met back up with Tom and Nancy, and met new friends Rich and Terry.

The eight of us will be working at Amazon and will all be at Betty's rv park in Abbyville, LA for mardi gras in February.

Hope all is going well for you

drop us a line when you can

Love to all of ya

Jim and Linda

Bushnell, Florida

Wednesday we drove back across the state to Bushnell, which is an Escapee park.  We will spend a week here before heading north to Campbellsville, KY. We will be there on the 24th to start our stay and go to work on the 31st.

Took a few pictures of the park for you. The trees are young Live oaks and the moss hanging from them is a scavenger plant that lives on the trees. It does not harm the trees. These are very common trees in the southwest and mature ones are very spectacular looking.

Taking like easy this week, resting up for work.

Hope you are having a good day’

Love to ya all

Jim and Linda