Recap and new adventures

To recap, we left Kansas and Amazon and worked our way back to Arizona in time to celebrate Christmas Day in Sedona with Seans mom and her husband Ken. After the holiday we went to California where we met up with our kids at Coronado beach and brought in the New Year and celebrated Seans 55 birthday. We then spent two weeks in Alpine at a local Indian reservation RV park. We spent many hours with our adorable grandson Carson and a few with Aislynn as she had school.  Sean jr and his wife Lisa had their house in Alpine for sale during this time. They sold it right after we left and bought a fixer upper on almost 5 acres in Ramona. It is another suburb to San Diego that allows them the country life while still being near their jobs in El Cajon.  It is a project but has huge potential. Sean Jr and Lisa are the perfect couple for this project. They are busy making it a home for themselves and their children. 

    New Years on Coronado Beach

    My love and I on his 55th bday

    Campfire on the beach, Coronado Island

    Spinning with grandpa

    Long walks spending time together as a family

    Carson and Cory

    Little Man

   Can't remember where this was but I like it

    Sleep over with grandma and grandpa in the rv

    Crazy grandkids!!

    Aislynn

    Carson and Ais

    Borrego Springs

    Rock snake in the hills of Borrego Springs

    Tired puppy at Borego Springs

   Hiking in Borrego Springs

   Cold outside - Borrego Springs

After our time in Alpine, we headed south to Borrego Springs, CA where we boondocked for a few days. Then we headed to Yuma, AZ where we ventured south to Algondes, Mexico for dental work. Sean and I both needed a root canal and a crown. With our dental insurance we were looking at approximately $900 each. In Algodones we paid this for TWO root canals and crowns. Plus, we submitted the paper work for our Mexican dental work to our insurance and we were reimbursed for the full amount we spent.  Yes that is right, two root canals and two crowns done in 24 hours with NO MONEY OUT OF POCKET! And in between procedures we went out to the plaza and drank some beer. No pain and no money out of pocket is a huge success to us. We are both pleased with our work and have no complaints. If you want more information, just message me and I'll answer any questions you might have.

    Colorado river, Yuma

    Meeting up with good friends in Quartzite

    Forgot to mention we boondocked in Quartzite

From Yuma we headed to Casa Grande Arizona to sit out the winter weather. We spent our month their visiting friends, family and getting our yearly medical evaluations done. We were given a clean bill of health and were ready to hit the road again. We left and headed to Tucson where we partook in an Escapade.  For you non RV folk, this is a conference for full time rv'ers put on by our RV club, the Escapees. We had a great time, especially meeting up with our UK friends, Richard and Hazel.  We also reconnected with my old coworker, Brenda Cowan and her husband. All in all a great educational week and fun times with old and new friends.

    Ostrich farm with Ken and Lou

    Renaissance Fair

    Meeting up with my good friend and co worker, Jessica.

    At NAU with our best friends, Brad and Lisa and our kids

    Aerial view of the Escapade at the Tucson Fairgrounds

On March 13, we left Tucson and hit Los Cruces, New Mexico. We had a great dinner with an old BOP co worker. From there we were headed to Austin, Texas but we needed to stay somewhere before we got to Austin. It is a long, lonely stretch of road and we finally stopped almost 500 miles later in Junction, Texas. We found a great RV park and were ECSTATIC to park and enjoy some beautiful scenery before venturing forth to Austin the next day. Those of you who RV know what I mean after that many miles of travel! Phew!! 

    I'll never forget Junction City. It was just what we needed after a long day!

From there we headed into Austin where we spent three days, including St. Patrick's day. Meg came down from Fort Worth and hung out with us. We didn't plan this but Austin was in the midst of the South by South West extravaganza. I'll be honest, we both don't really like crowds, so being here during this festival would not have been our first choice. However, this is when we needed to go through the area and that is what was going on. We had a good time, but all the partying is not really our scene, but we really had a lot of fun! We also got to see my niece, Emily and some of her family. 

    Austin skyline

  Saint Patricks day with my crazy Irish daughter

    Maybe she comes by it honestly!

    My niece Emily and her boyfriend Jeff

  Meg was interviewed by the Jimmy Kimmel show and made the cut for the program

    Downtown Austin

We got meg back on the train to Fort Worth and headed out the next day to Louisianna! We are now parked at the Bauou Segnette State Park. It is a beautiful state park located a few minutes from a ferry that will drop us off near the French Quarter in New Orleans. We are here for 10 days and are looking forward to exploring New Orleans! But another slide cable sheared on our way here so we will need to get that repaired during our stay. If it isn't one thing, it is another!!

    We saw this little guy in the state park we are staying in, Bayou Segnette State Park

That brings us up to date. I apologize for not blogging for SOOOOO long but honestly, sometimes I really get tired of it. I have friends and fellow rv'ers who blog weekly. I just can't do it. It bores me to death to write so much about what we are doing and I know it bores anyone who might bother to read this. I don't blog to gain readers, I blog to keep anyone who might care about our where abouts and adventures but mostly to record our travels.  But now we are on a very exciting leg of our travels as we head to Camp Hatteras to work for the summer so I will try to be better but NO promises!

We are OUTTA here!!

We finished up our "tour of duty" so to speak, at Amazon. It was a long 7 weeks. We are headed to Arizona and then onto San Diego to be with our kids and grandkids for a few weeks.

We continued in the inbound area stowing and Sean waterspidering until the last week. We were then moved to outbound gift wrapping. I am a terrible wrapper and literally paid my daughter, Meghan, to gift wrap for me from about the age of seven. I even had her wrap her own Christmas gifts after I put them into plain boxes and taped them shut. So when I saw the work list and my name under gift wrapping, I panicked! I went to the supervisor and said if you think I am lousy at stowing, wait until you see my gift wrapping! I even explained how I had paid my daughter for years to do it for me. In typical Amazon style, they didn't really care but they did think it was funny. Ha ha. Fortunately, a coworker took me under her wing and said she would wrap and I could put the ribbon on and the gift tag. Sean was still stowing at this point but he found it VERY humorous that I was gift wrapping...until they sent him the next night. After one night of ribbons and tags I felt like I could handle the actual wrapping. And, like most things, after you do it 5000 times you get pretty good at it. Meghan would be proud! I actually ended up really liking gift wrapping for two reasons. One, they had music! You don't realize how wonderful having music is when you do repetitive boring things for 10 hours. When your stowing the only sound you hear is the whirring of the conveyor belts moving customers purchases from the shelves to shipping. And two, it was very well lit. The rest of the warehouse is on the darker side and my old eyes didn't appreciate the dimness. The bad thing about gift wrapping is that you stand in one place for 10 hours at tables that are too short for me and incredibly too short for Sean. Standing is very hard on our backs. Both of us have bad backs though we can walk all day, we cannot stand for long without feeling great pain. But for Sean it went from uncomfortable to painful. I told the supervisor he was a great waterspider but his exceptional reputation hadn't reached shipping yet. At this point Sean did have one of the taller tables but it was only minimally helpful. Half way through his first shift they asked us to move further up the line to some empty stations. Sean just looked at her and said "absolutely not". He explained that this table was a little taller and he couldn't move to a shorter table. She then said how about if you waterspidered? He happily accepted! Within a few hours his prowess as a waterspider was made apparent and he happily remained in that position for most of the rest of the week. At the end of his first shift waterspidering in gift wrap, an older lady said, "look at that water monkey boy go! He never stops moving and keeps up on everything"!  The next night when he was assigned to waterspider, a group of older ladies cheered! Goodness, the guy is hard enough to live with anyway and now I have old women cheering for him! I will never hear the end of this!!  My claim to fame is by the last night I wrapped approximately 125 gifts in my 10 hour shift. I understand there is a utube where a real full time Amazon guy wraps a gift in 17 seconds....obviously I have a long way to go. 

We had the rig mostly ready to go and so we came home, slept a few hours and hit the road. We spent the night for the very first time in a Wal Mart in Elk City, Oklahoma. For you non Rv folk, Wal Mart happily allows overnighting in their parking lots as long as there is room. We have hesitated to try it out but many people do it and we only wanted to sleep and move on, which we did. We were asleep by 9:00 p.m. and woke up at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. We are now happily day people again!

Our stint at Amazon was many things..... Painful, mind numbingly boring, cold, wet and very busy. It was also briefly interesting, monetarily positive and we met some great people! Will we do it again... Maybe if they have some openings in warmer climates. Rv rigs, no matter how expensive, are not meant to be in pro longed freezing temps. It isn't good for them and it is hard on their owners! Personally, I would rather be financially able to just go and do whatever we want whenever we want but that is not possible financially for us until we win the lottery. And, we really get to know people when we have these types of jobs. You get to know them and hear their stories. We have made some great friends that we will hopefully meet up with again as we all head on down the highway!

    Watching the Broncos at the local dive bar, the Zone

    Went to dinner with our new friends Kathy and Bob. This me and Kathy doing a selfie

    My delicious dinner out....shrimp, chicken, and

    pineapple, served in a pineapple

    51st birthday margarita

      Our Amazon id's and tshirt

    What good is a blog update without a photo of Remi? Here he is 

    in the truck glad to be out of Coffeyville and on the road!

    We pulled into our Rv park in Albuquerque right 

    when the hail hit

Amazon Adventures

We have completed four weeks at Amazon and three of those weeks were five days with 10 hour days. Phew....makes me tired just thinking about it!

The first week was spent in what Amazon refers to as "hardening". I guess that basically means getting you ready for the long days and even longer weeks. Mostly we spent it training, doing paperwork and being bored out of our minds. This hardening first period was four days at 5 hours per day for a whopping 20 hours. The next week we went right into overtime. Normally you work four days a week, 10 hours per day. But, since the holidays were looming near, we went straight to 50 hour work weeks. 

Amazon is divided into two sections - inbound and outbound. We work inbound as "stowers". That means we take merchandise off of carts, scan the UPC code and put them on shelves and bins. Then we scan the bin which has a tag that is alpha and number coordinated.  All of this goes into a very large data base and then once an order is placed, a "picker" (who is a part of the outbound side of the operation) gets the order and is told on their scanner where each item the "stower" put the item. They go to the bin, pick out the item, scan it and then put it in a tote that goes on a conveyor belt to the folks who put the order in boxes. Then someone addresses the package and off it goes!  There are other jobs of course. There is the guys who take the merchandise off the trucks and the people who take the items out of the boxes that were shipped to Amazon and puts them on the carts that go to the stowers. And there are gift wrap people and then all the other folks who assist us in different ways. One of these assisting jobs is called "water spider". They take the carts that have been loaded with merchandise off of the pallets and push them to the spot where the stowers get them and do our part. Water spiders sometimes have to move very fast unloading the carts and loading up the empty carts for the "pit" driver (not sure what pit stands for) has hoisted up onto the many levels. It also can be physically exhausting because the carts can be quite heavy.

Where we work is a very large warehouse. And I mean very large! Some estimates I heard were a million square feet. Amazon calls them fulfillment centers.  I don't know about all of them, but this one is very old and dirty. There are no windows and dust and grime lies on everything. This facility is closing after the holidays because it is just too far away from a large airport and I assume many other reasons. Tulsa is the closest large city and it is over an hour away. This fulfillment center is located in Coffeyville, Kansas. It is a very small, typical mid western town. The houses are old and some actually very quaint but almost all in need of a paint job. The town looks on the verge of fading into memory and probably will get closer to that reality with the closing of Amazon.  I can't say I like it...it is rather depressing.  Below is photo of Coffeyville that I took on a walk and the others are off of the Internet to show you what a fulfillment center looks like. We are not allowed to bring anything into the warehouse that might be misconstrued as stolen property and my iPhone to use as a camera would certainly fall into that category! You have to go through security and metal detectors every time you come off the warehouse floor. There is plenty of high dollar items that many people would love to steal. Especially now that they are soon to be unemployed.

As it turns out, I am not a very good stower. And to be honest, it is a little embarrassing! Usually once a week a young person comes by with a laptop to show me the error of my ways and "counsel" me. They show me on what day I miscounted what object and then ask me "why" that happened. If I could even remember what item you are talking about would be a miracle but then to ask me why I miscounted it? Really? I have no freaking idea and if I did I would stop doing it! What I want to tell them is that I had a 4.0 in grad school but for some darn reason I can't count correctly! Thank god for college as I would have been an incredible failure as a warehouse factory worker. Of course they always assure me that I am not "in trouble" but they just want to help me get better.  Thank goodness as I really, really want to be a better counter. It has always been my dream..... NOT

Now, those of you reading this and know Sean, are probably already thinking that he is probably very good at this job. And he is. His counter is not broken like mine and I think he has only had one or two errors. One of them he told the "counselor" she was wrong and that it was not his error. She double checked and of course, he was right. Because of his great skills they have moved him up and he is now a "water spider" usually half of our shift. And, of course, he is a very good water spider. He is strong and fast so he moves the carts quickly and efficiently. So now he is the "problem solvers" (the guys who are assigned to your area to fix your problems. I.e., things won't scan, are lost, etc.) pet. They tell him how great he is and he even was given a vending buck the other day. Yep, a fake dollar bill to use in the vending machine. Now that is appreciation! Personally, I don't know why he even bothered with college. He could have done this for a career and I bet he would be the head water spider in no time! I would be unemployed.......

We spend 10 hours every day looking at tons of merchandise. It never ceases to amaze me how many things there are in the world to purchase and what a huge consumer of stuff we are! And then I think, and in a few years, this warehouse full of stuff will all be in a landfill.  We are killing our planet with all of these things that we mostly, don't need.  It is really quite shameful when you think of all the people who are just thankful to have food in their bellies let alone 50 different types of pans to cook their dinner in. Here are some of the most incredibly dumb things to buy from Amazon....

There are tons of books on any subject you can imagine. My favorite "Animals with Sharpies". A book of very simplistic animal drawings in black ink and what they might write with a sharpie. I had to flip through this one! My favorite, a mouse writing a note to a cat...."I hate you. You are a shithead. How would you like it if I ate your wife?" Just goes to show you that almost anyone can publish a book!

A cairn. For those of you who don't hike, a cairn is a stack of river rocks stacked up to show you the way on a trail that may not be discernible any other way. So, if you want, you can buy a stack of river rocks with a gift tag explaining what a "cairn" is from Amazon. I guess maybe it has some spiritual aspect? But I am thinking it would be pretty easy to just go to a stream bed and pick up some river rock of various sizes and stack them.....

An electric egg cooker. It is about the size of a toaster. You plug it in and cook your eggs on it. Funny, a frying pan has always worked just fine for me.....

And of course numerous sex toys. Nothing really shocking until I saw a pair of silicone feet. I thought it was a child's toy to paint toenails. You know, like those Barbie heads that you can style the hair over and over again? So I picked it up to check it out and I saw that it is a pair of silicone feet with holes at the ankle. One hole is to replicate an anus and the other a vagina. Talk about having a foot fetish! Yuck!

I could go on and on but these were the top picks for stupid stuff you can buy from Amazon.

As far as the job goes, it is pretty boring spending 10 hours placing items on a shelf. It is not really hard work but you are constantly moving for those 10 hours. Our pedometer estimates we walk around five miles a night. One night of water spidering for Sean was almost 16 miles! Pickers average about 10-12 miles a night. We will probably be moved to pickers in the next few weeks. So, though tiring, it is doable. Working nights is not pleasant but it is also doable. But what we have decided is that combing all of the above with arctic temperatures is just too much. We (mostly Sean) spent every waking hour before work fixing frozen water pipes, leaks and generally preparing for more cold and it's problems when the cold front came through that affected everyone on this side of the country. We survived but it was not fun. And to top it off I had the worst tooth ache of my life. So, unless they have jobs available next holiday season in Arizona, I don't think we will be doing this again. But, never say never!

    And I am complaining?!

   

Moving on to Amazon....

Our time has come to an end in Texas. We are moving onto Kansas and our seasonal job at Amazon in Coffeyville, Kansas. 

We have been busy attending Meghan's volleyball games and working the occasional Dallas Cowboys games selling beer and frozen margaritas.  Meghan, unfortunately suffered a concussion after taking an elbow to her head during a game when she and a fellow team mate went for a ball at the same time.  She was restricted to complete rest with no stimulation. No school, no volleyball, no tv, no reading, no screens of any type (phones, computers, and TV) and large amounts of fish oil.  Since we lead a "non stimulating " life, she chose to hang out with us in the Rv. I wish I could say it was a great relaxing time for us all, but it was not. Poor Meghan not only had to deal with headaches and irritation by any light but also anxiety about missing school and not being there for her team.  She ended up missing three games and almost 2 weeks of school before she was cleared to participate in life again. Unfortunately the lack of exercise also caused her muscles some atrophy and she has not felt she is back up to the level of play she was at before. But, as her father and I kept saying, you only have ONE brain, so better this then some long term damage.  She played a few more games before her Senior Night game. This is the last home game of the season before playoffs. It is also the last game we can attend before we leave for Kansas and Amazon. It was a bitter sweet day... Sean and I spent so many years watching our children play sports, traveling all over the state and often other states to see them play. It made up most of all of our free time for at least the last 15 years. We made many friends through these activities and spent our vacations, money and all of our hearts being a part of this great endeavor called competitive sports. Some people may have thought we were crazy to spend so much time, energy and money in this past time but we wouldn't change a thing. We saw sports help shape our boys into men and our daughter into a strong, powerful woman. It was worth everything and we were so blessed to be such big part of this time in their lives.  I have to admit, this "ending" has me choked up a bit. But as in all things, endings only lead to new beginnings. Thank God for grandchildren!! It will be a few years but I am sure we have a few more games to watch. 

                                                                     Senior night

                                       Hockey game with Meghan and her boyfriend Johnny

Onto more humorous endeavors, like booze selling at the Cowboy games! Sean's last blog update was a great look at our newest careers. Unfortunately he has not gotten a cart again and has had to carry the tubs with approximately 2.5 cases of 16oz beers.  He has a much more physically challenging job then I do since I can only carry 12 margaritas at once and they don't weigh much. He also has to take off every twist bottle cap and pop every tab before he gives the customer their beverage.  This has led to some cuts on his fingers and bleeding. Now remember, this is during the Ebola scare and my poor husband already sweats enough for six people so throw in a little blood to boot and you got a customer who doesn't want his drink! I mean talk about bodily fluids! So poor Sean has to make three trips to first aid to get his cuts covered in bandages and he also carries a rag to keep the sweat wiped up to a minimum. You can imagine that this cuts not only into his time waiting for the bandages but also into lost customers who don't want blood on their beers! Luckily he has become hardened so to speak and his injuries have lessened. He also carries bandages in his pocket too. As for the sweating, most of the guys want to buy him a beer since he is so dehydrated. Maybe he even gets a few extra pity tips too! He always makes almost twice what I do. 

One of the rules as a seller of adult beverages is that you must card everyone! No matter what. And I do mostly. But sometimes their are those individuals you are pretty sure they are old enough but you card them anyway in case the undercover people checking up on you are nearby (they can fire you on the spot if you don't card or if you sell to a minor). So I carded a questionable customer and was I shocked to see he was only a few years younger then me! I gasped and said "you look so young! I wish I had some of that!" The man smiled, arched his eyebrows and said "you can have some of that if you want it"! I suddenly realized my incredible faux pas and I laughed embarrassingly and said "that is NOT what I meant but that was funny as hell"! I moved away quickly and couldn't stop blushing the rest of the night. Geeze! How naive can I be?

The line when you check back in from selling and an example of a tub but much emptier, and the home made strap you use to carry it

Sean and I are also very excited about our next summer job. We applied for and were offered the position of activity directors for a very large Rv resort in North Carolina on the coast. The resort is located in the OBX or the outer banks and is called Camp Hatteras. Unlike other work camping jobs, your site and all your utilities, cable, wifi and laundry is included in your job and all hours you work are paid for. This particular resort is considered one of the best work camping jobs you can get. Many people return summer after summer. We will have ocean views as we plan and facilitate daily activities for the resort participants. This particular resort is a big family place so we will be working with all age groups. Sean and I both worked in and loved recreation in our youth so this job is perfect for us! 

Camp Hatteras click here to see the RV resort

On the other hand, I am a bit worried about Amazon. We were given the night shift which I have never worked before so that alone will take some getting use to. Also, this particular Amazon has announced their permanent closure after the holiday season. I follow a group on facebook and I have heard some negative comments about how the warehouse is currently being ran. But, as Sean keeps reminding me, it is only for six weeks and if they make us too mad, we just fold up our "house" and go. So, I am not sure if I will be doing much blogging during our Amazon tenure, but I will try to fit in at least one post between hour ten hour shifts! Wish us luck!


Random photos