SEASONAL

Seasonal Campers, Amazon’s term for RV’ers like ourselves that work the CHRISTmas peak season for them, when the massive black Friday orders start rolling in.

A news team from ABC television was at the Green River State Park Campground interviewing RV’ers that work for Amazon and at the plant shooting video footage. Here is a link to the Diane Sawyer News Broadcast.

ABC News, Seasonal Campers, Diane Sawyer

Our campground, Indian Ridge, isn’t too far away from the State Park. We drive about eight miles each way, to and from work.

Want to learn more about the life style ? Here is a link to the Workamper News Forums. Just choose a user Name and Pass word, then scroll down to the Amazon workers forum at the bottom of the page. It is pretty interesting reading and gives quite a bit of insight to the life style. Here is the link:

WORKAMPER NEWS FORUMS LINK

We have our CHRISTmas tree up now, it’s on the desk in the office slide out. The toy dog is barking jingle bells. He, he, didja’ think ya’ would get through the season without having to hear that ?  Here is a look:

Our 2010 CHRISTnas Tree with Jingle Bell dog

Merry CHRISTmas from Campbellsville Kentucky !

ART’s

Across from the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Kentucky there is a really cool auto memorabilia place right across the street. Their clever use of neon and gas pump sign lighting is worth the visit, just by themselves.

It was a overcast, rainy day and a great day to spend inside looking at all of the nifty stuff.

Talk about a trip down memory lane !

Art’s Automotive is a great place to visit. There are lot’s of one of a kind auto collectible’s there.

ASSEMBLY

Our first stop of one sight seeing day was the General Motors Corvette Assembly plant in Bowling Green Kentucky. Every Corvette built in America is made right here.

Front entrance.

If you aren’t in a Chevrolet vehicle you might have to park and walk quite some distance.

Our Ford Dually really stood out when we arrogantly disreguarded the signs and parked much closer to the tour entrance.

The tour was really great. Looking at the various stages of assembly was quite an eye opener. We can now tell the difference between the various performance levels of Corvette’s, and believe me there is a large difference.

MUSEUM

A heavy rain storm passed through the Indian Ridge Campground at 0415 hours, waking us up. We got an early start on the sight seeing day off from work. We had plans to tour several places in Bowling Green Kentucky.  One of those places was the National Corvette Museum. Here is what our arm Band admission’s looked like.

Note our personal favorite in the museum, a pristine 1957 Vette, in the background. The arm bands and the admission were free for Veterans as a part of their thirty days long, Veterans appreciation month. The great aluminum bodied 1953 was a crowd pleasing eye catcher.

Those classic first vette lines, caused people to stand and look for long periods of time, just soaking in the simple beauty.

Don’t ya’ just love them headlight grilles ?

VOLTAGE

The quality of the shore power connection varies widely as we travel across our Nation.

These photos taken at the Indian Ridge Campground in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

Here is the voltage with nothing turned on. Yep, looks good, but   .   .   .   .  .   .

Here it is with two electric heaters on. Pretty bad, Huh ! Now, since we know this, we operate our various systems differently. A purely resistive load can survive such low voltages better than motors and control circuits can. Because of that we won’t risk running our roof air conditioner with the heat strip. But the heating elements for the refrigerator and the water heater will likely be ok.

We also try to keep this test light plugged in. It tells us if we loose ground to the trailer or, maybe the neutral becomes intermittent, as well as other functions. Strangely, we seem to find an intermittent neutral more often than we expected as we travel about. Click to enlarge photo to read the label.

In this photo, Betty’s crock pot and one heater are on, note the voltage.

CARS

I love to look at old cars, rusty or restored, Show pieces or daily drivers, but, my favorite of all time is the Dussenberg. There wasn’t one here, but it was a good museum with many that the owner drives on road trips and parades.

The Museum is located in amongst his several dealerships and car lots, and many of his cars are at home still.

This beautiful Model T is ready for the road !

Note the lights and the fuel container on the running board. A $50 option then that was passed by, often times because of cost.

What a wonderful and distinctive sound this engine can make.

What ! No shift lever ! Yeh, pedals did it !

Also in this museum was a Pierce Arrow similar to the one that Grandpa Anderson cut the back off of to make into a  flatbed  pickup truck that they traveled back to Arkansas in, from Racine Wisconsin. He had been working there for the Case Tractor Company. They traveled with furniture piled high on it. It was traded for 40 acres of bottom land, to someone wanting to go to California. Yes, times was tough in them Arkansas hills back then.

For many years I still had the leather cased tire gauge that came with the Pierce Arrow. Somehow it disappeared along life’s twisting path.

COKE

You know, as in Coca Cola, not as in Cocaine. Well, not since the old days, anyhow. In Elizabethville Kentucky is a great Coca Cola Museum. Here is a look at a few of our photos. There is so much to see here that we took way too many photos. This first video is of a 1930’s electric Coke sign. Turn your audio up and listen to that mechanical contactor.

1930’s Coca Cola Sign

Right as you come in the door is this grand old Model A Coke Truck.

And it just got better and better after that !

The Coke Fountain where we enjoyed a .05 cent Coca Cola !

Here is Betty getting ready to order our nickel Cokes.

Cool carved wood museum sign.

Read this very early Coke clock’s inscription. No doubt, it’s from the early days when there was a small amount of cocaine in the formula.

Clever animated Coke can video.

Star wars R2D2 as a Coke Can

Coke sign in the men’s room.

RAILROAD

Lots of rolling stock out in the yard at this site is such a great attraction. Lots of cars, engines and equipment here.

The front entrance.

The gift shop and ticket office were combined.

Museum tickets were only $5.

Early electric powered engine light.

Carbide gas powered engine light.

Coal oil switch lantern and yard limit sign. Because there is always something going on in the yard, the inbound engines signal their arrival to everyone working on the yard.

Track inspectors bicycle. Not many of these left out there any more !

Rail cars, restored and looking good !

This early crossing sign was used before the more recognizable cross bars in the form of an X.

Work truck rail car. Note the shiny wheels at the front, it’s still being used on the rail line here.

SLUGGER

After completing three days of training at Amazon, we have four scheduled days off before beginning our ten hour days.

This, we thought , would be the perfect opportunity to take in some of the local sights. On our way South through Louisville, as we arrived in Kentucky,  we tried to stop by and visit the Louisville Slugger bat company. We were pulling our fifth wheel right down into the old downtown part of town. He, he, he, now folks, don’t try that at home ! That is a stunt for highly skilled professionals ! We managed to extract ourselves from that mess without crushing any cars, or at least we think we did, and got back up on the interstate, telling ourselves that we’d be back.

Today was that day ! After breakfast we headed back to the bat factory. This time without the fifth wheel. Things went better.

At the entrance is the world’s largest baseball bat.

 

Once in the front doors you are looking down a wide avenue of cool stuff and the tour ticket sales.

This very large glove and ball is at the back of the avenue near the bating cage where you can try your skills at different speed levels for .01 per ball.

Souvenir ticket stubs.

 

Inside the Museum and tour staging area you can stand behind a dummy catcher and see what a smokin’ hot pitch coming at his glove at 90 MPH looks like ! Now that’s pretty impressive.

The small souvenir bats were a gift from the factory at the end of the tour.

Since we are tee shirt kind of folks, the half price tee shirts were a big hit !

SPACE

No, not the final frontier, but, the storage space kind !

When we were in the 17’ Oliver, space was absolutely critical and we didn’t carry small appliances such as a toaster or toaster oven or electric drip-o-la-tor coffee makers. We picked them up extremely cheap at thrift stores, then left them at the campground for someone else to use.

Though we have much more room in our new Coleman 36’ fifth wheel, we did the thrift store thing while at the sugar beet harvest this year.

After the harvest we had decided it was time to find permanent replacements for those thrift store items. We had decided that we wanted the Black and Decker Spacemaker line of appliances in black color to match other kitchen devices.

Sears near Louisville Ky had them in stock, so we spent a day there on their parking lot making the installation and testing them out. It was late in the day so we overnighted at Walmart out by the interstate before continuing on. Here is how they look:

The toaster oven has a heat shield between it and the bottom of the cabinet.

The coffee maker shape was just right for the sink area. In the second photo you can see the voltage monitor that we run all of the time that we are hooked to shore power. Here is a closer look at it:

This is the RV park voltage ( 120 ) with all electric heat in our trailer off. It drops down to

103.4 with it all turned on. Yep this thing is telling us stuff we need to know about our electrical shore power supply. We have a plug in monitor that also tells us if the ground and neutral are correct and if they might be intermittent. All of which dramaticly shorten the life of appliances. 

AMAZON

Nearly all of our hiring on, as Amazon Seasonal Campers, was completed via the internet. We did fax some of the forms in, more as a convenience than of a necessity. We had received a series of PDF files from the Amazon HR coordinator, one of which was a list of LabCorp locations where we could stop by to submit our drug screen samples. Since we were taking the scenic route, we chose to stop at the one in Dewitt Mi., South of the Mackinac Bridge that connects the Upper and lower peninsula’s of Michigan.

We arrived in Campbellsville Ky., three days early and had been on the road and off of the grid for well over two weeks. We were ready to light for awhile.  Our cost per day, before Amazon would pick up the cost was $25.

Leaving the KOA office after registering, we immediately began to run into friends from the Coffeyville Ks’s Amazon plant and other places. Every one welcomed us and helped get us on to our site with full hookups in short order.

Here is a look at our site:

Our campsite is on a hillside. We chose it to be below the crest of the hill when North winds blow.

Here is what our hookups look like. We have our freeze proof water hose with heat tape hooked up and the water and electric are covered with a barrel from the back ditch of a truck parking lot. The barrel had been ran over, was crushed and was way too much trouble to straighten out.

We brought our 100 lb. propane tank on a dolly, have it now filled and hooked up.

A campground meet & Greet was soon set for all of us newbies and we met more folks that we had worked with at the Amazon Kansas site.

In a few days we attended the official Amazon Meet & Greet at the Marina campground meeting room. We were in a group of 96 that were in that hiring cycle.

We received our work and shift assignments. We would be on D shift in receiving, working 1700 to 0330 hours, on Wed, Thu, Fri & Sat, following three days of five hour training shifts. After that voluntary overtime would be available to those that wanted it.

Upon completion of our work assignment and release by Amazon we would both be entitled to the completion bonus, before heading home for CHRISTmas.

Some departments are already getting into voluntary overtime and the peak season is starting to build up. The Ambassadors, instructors and coaches are friendly and helpful. This is a much different and more friendly atmosphere than Coffeyville.

We have met lots of couples here  that also work for American Land and Leisure as we do, in the Summers, out in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and some that also worked the Sugar Beet harvest.

Think you might be interested and want to ask questions ? Feel free to call us at 479.243.5450.

LAUNDRY

Laundry and grocery day, before we start our training days at Amazon.

Found this great, clean laundry on the North 55 Campbellsville by-pass.

Rocking chairs and a newspaper machine out on the front porch.

Here is a look at the lead story on the front page.

This town is glad to have workampers here !

Betty gets ready to head for the dryers.