Another new adventure!

The new year (2011) started out with a bang and never slowed down. We got back from KY on January 8 (the day that congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head in Tucson). We actually had to wait for the stop light right at the intersection where the shooting had taken place just minutes before. What a commotion!! We felt really bad for her and hoped she would be alright. After having been gone for a little more than 9 months we had a lot of work ahead of us (sorting through mail, mostly junk mail, catching up with friends, unloading and washing and cleaning out the trailer etc.). We then decided that we wanted a new trailer -- one that was just a bit bigger but with a couch and a bed you could walk around. After an extensive search of all the RV dealers in the area we found one that was just about right. It even had a slide out which gave us more room to walk around and play our Wii games. Right after we took possession of the new trailer we got a job offer at the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert. We had volunteered there for 3 summers and now Francoise got a paying job working 5 days a week for the PFMA (Petrified Forest Museum Association) while Gary volunteers for the Petrified Forest 4 days a week to pay for the campsite. We only got 1 week notice to get the new trailer packed, to say goodbye to our friends, get the house cleaned and all the wash caught up. We hadn't even taken the trailer on a maiden voyage so we were  hoping all would work out fine. The trip up went very smoothly and we arrived on Saturday (March 5) at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon to a much colder climate than we had left in Phoenix. It was back to warm clothes and having the heater on day and night. Forgot to say that we now have a water heater that heats not only on propane but also electrically. What a luxury -- no more waiting for warm water. Everybody at the park was so happy to see us and everybody seemed to know we were coming. We were very lucky in that we got the prime spot in the campground with nobody in front of us; we have been waiting for that for all those other times we were here. 

After we got to our destination we found out that Gary will be able to work 1 day a week with pay for the PFMA as well and they will give us our 2 days off at the same time.  It has been very cold the last couple of days so we had to leave the water running all night to prevent the hoses from freezing. We still only have 30 amp so we have to be careful what is running (like Green Acres -- if the coffee pot is on we can't have anything else on, if we cook on our electric stove we have to use the small burner and can have the heater on low etc.) 

More next time. Miss all of you!!

Back in civilization -- more or less.

Wow, it has been a long time since we wrote in this blog. We have been extremely busy with our work at Amazon and didn't have much time to spend on the computer nor did we have much time for socializing.
After Thanksgiving Amazon started their Peak which meant we all worked 60 hours a week which was divided into 5 eleven hour days and 1 five hour day. This meant that we had to get up at 3:15 A.M and be at our workstation at 5:00 A.M. and got off at 4:30 P.M. We worked so hard and were pretty tired so that by the time Gary made supper, we ate supper, washed up the dishes and made our lunches for the next day it was time to go to bed (at least for Francoise). We were able to visit the Jim Dean distillery which was similar to the Jack Daniel's distillery except that here we were offered real samples since we were not in a dry county. The picture below is a model of a distillery that actually works.

Sometime in November the Lexington newspaper interviewed some of the workampers and put a rather negative article in their newspaper. USAToday picked up on it and did a more positive article about Amazon workampers. We were on the front page of that paper and finally ABC did a nice program on workampers. Later the Korean broadcasting system did a filming of the workampers at Amazon in Campbellsville. We are at the front of the line coming back from work trotting up the hill to our campsite

We worked until about 11 A.M. on Thanksgiving Day and we each received a pie (apple, pecan, or pumpkin) on our way out. We were invited to our P.A.'s brother's house for a potluck after work. This was very nice. Everybody in Kentucky is so friendly!!! 

Everybody had told us that it wouldn't get very cold until January but they had an abnormally cold and early winter. It started getting very cold in November already and we had to learn to deal with it so we wouldn't have frozen pipes. We left the cold water running day and night on the cold days but had to buy another little heater and a work light to put into the compartment where the water heater was as we couldn't get any warm water one morning. It was hard to deal with all the humidity that built up as well.

One evening after we went to the store we came back and found out that Gary had lost the keys to get into the trailer. So, we had to figure out how to break in to our trailer. We had to take out the emergency window which was a big deal as it had many screws to undo. Then Gary had to climb through the window which wasn't easy and I had to give him a final push. Then a couple of days later somebody in the campground found the keys and returned them to the office. We were very lucky. 

From Thanksgiving until Christmas we did nothing but eat, sleep and work. After Christmas we could work less hours but we chose to continue our 60 hour work week. We were asked to stay through the middle of January but we chose to end our working there on December 31. We worked a full day (10 hours) that day. 

We woke up Christmas day with snow so we had a white Christmas which I wanted if it was going cold anyway we might as well have snow. 

There is one place in Campbellsville that sells hamburgers and guns. So while you are eating a hamburger you can decide which gun you want to buy. We never went inside but took a picture of the outside.

Francoise also got interviewed by the local newspaper because of her book. So, for a little while she was quite a celebrity and sold quite a few of her books. 

On January 1 we finally left Campbellsville. Gary had to unhook the electricity, and the sewer and water hoses. This was quite an ordeal as we woke up hearing rain on the roof. It really was coming down and it looked like it wasn't going to clear up. But there were little time slots where it didn't rain quite so hard so he was able to do most of it without getting too wet or too cold. He did have to hook up the truck while it was raining pretty hard. We stayed the first night in West Memphis, Arkansas in Tom Sawyer R.V. park which was nice. We did have electricity to keep us warm. The next day we stayed in a KOA camp in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. We did get a reduced rate because we told them we only needed electricity and they had a site where the sewer was not functional. The third night it was still cold so we needed electricity again and we stayed in a new campground in Sweetwater, Texas. We, again, got a reduced rate for not wanting full hook-ups. We were the only campers there. The fourth night we stayed in the parking lot of Sunland Park Casino near El Paso, Texas. We thought we didn't need electricity so we would boondock. Well, we were wrong. It was freezing when we woke up. While we had the furnace and the water heater and the stove to cook our water for coffee the flames on the stove were getting smaller and smaller until they finally died. So, Gary had to go out in the bitter cold and change propane tanks, which wasn't much fun as he had to fiddle with the valve. He finally got it to work. The fifth night we stayed with our friend Penny and her friend Leonard in Tucson. We finally were in somewhat warmer climate and we had a real shower to enjoy. Saturday we will be home and then the big task of unpacking, cleaning the trailer, and going through the mail will begin. It will be nice to be home again and we already have appointments to see some of our friends who are anxious to hear our stories.

October 24, 2010

Well, here it is. We will start our 13th week on Monday; didn't think we would last at times (at least Françoise didn't). The work is hard and the hours long and the worst part is getting up at 4:15 A.M. But we are hanging in there where many of us have quit already.
I had my birthday party here and that was fun. I baked 3 cakes (2 carrot cakes and 1 spice cake) and we supplied the ice-cream. We had invited everybody to help me celebrate which were liked by all. Fortunately I didn't have to have it in our little trailer. Lots of people came as it was on Saturday and most of us were off. Françoise got a motorcycle ride on Jeff's Harley. What a difference in motorcycles. She didn't think there would be any difference but Harley's are definitely comfortable.

The next Saturday we celebrated Bill and Dot's 50th wedding anniversary. They are such a neat couple and still so much in love. It is great to see that. We took some pictures of them with their dogs, Teddy and Rose. If there is such a thing as another life after this one I wouldn't mind coming back as a dog if I could have them as my owner.  They sure know how to enjoy life and take care of each other.

One week later again, (yes this can become a habit) we celebrated Welby and Punk's 60th wedding anniversary. She was named that way because she wasn't any bigger than a pumpkin when she was born -- however, her real name is Arlene.  They sure don't look old enough to be married 60 years and they are still sweethearts. They are the owners of our campground which in May was still a grass field. He works very hard to get it the way he wants to and we wish we had half the energy he has.  Françoise made them a really nice card with her SendOutCards home-based business and they were sure pleased with that. Everybody had to see the card.

Below is the card I made up. If you want to know how I made it contact me directly. It is fun to make them and people really like them.

We got a different job sometime during these weeks. We are now working in the ICQA department which involves counting items in the bins and doing a lot more crawling on the floor as a lot of the bins are at floor level. Ouch!!!! We sure can tell we are no spring chickens anymore, but then again we are doing better than some people our age.

There is a lot of Civil War history here in Campbellsville as well as in all of Kentucky as is seen in the mural below which is in downtown Campbellsville.

One day we went to Lexington to see the B-17 WWII bomber plane. What a plane it was. But the turret gunner had to be very small as the compartment he had to crawl into was not big. Actually, all of the crew had to be small - not only in height but also in build. Gary met George Daubner whom he hadn't seen for 15 years and whom he worked with at the EAA in Oshkosh, WI. George is B-17 pilot and tour director as well as the pilot for other old planes such as the Ford Trimotor. He gave both of us a ride in the Ford Trimotor way back in the 90s when we were volunteering at the EAA in Oshkosh, WI.

One day we went to Colonel Sander's first restaurant in Corbin, KY. There is a nice little museum telling all about how he started the business etc. The food there was excellent and we might have to go back one more time before we leave here as we never get any KFC food that good anywhere else.  In the photo below the restaurant is on the left, the gas station and motel that Colonel Sanders had are on the right.

From there we went to Cumberland Falls which is the biggest falls east of the Mississippi and south of Niagara Falls. It is also one of the two falls in the whole wide world that has what they call Moonglow. The other one is in Africa. A moonglow happens when the conditions are right during a full moon. We hiked some of the short trails but would like to go back and walk the longer ones. Don't know if that will happen.

Fall is definitely here and the weather is changing. We are now having the heat on during the night (on low) and are able to have the windows open during the day without having that noisy air-conditioning on. We will find out how cold it gets soon.

Amazon.com in Campbellsville, KY

It has been six weeks since we started working at Amazon.com It has been quite an experience. We were told ahead of time that we would find muscles we didn't know we had during the first week of working there. We thought that that wouldn't apply to us as we are in such good shape. Well, it didn't apply much to Gary but I sure found them all. I hurt all over and didn't think I could do it another day (and this was after the first 10 hour day). But, here I am and we will start our seventh week tomorrow. We work 4 days a week 10 hours a day. We walk to work and most of the time we walk back as well. We figure we must walk at least 8 miles a day and that is at a pretty fast pace as well. One good thing about it is that I can eat more than I usually do and I still lose weight. Have lost 6 pounds in 6 weeks and that feels good. 

As you can see the campground was still being built but Welby and his family worked very hard, and are still doing so to make our stay as comfortable as possible. Welby is 79 years old and works as hard, if not harder, than any man way younger than he is. 

Amazon.com view from our campsite

Welby and Velma (owners of the campground)

Our little trailer on the left. 

On our days off we did some sightseeing (if we didn't have to run errands like laundry or groceries shopping). One day we went to Louisville and toured the Louisville Slugger factory. We watched the baseball bats being made and we all got a small baseball bat as a souvenir.

In front of the Louisville Slugger factory and store.

Francoise and Babe Ruth. What a team!!

The Slugger factory is well worth seeing, especially if you are a baseball fan. They told that a week or so before Mother's day a lot of the baseball teams play with pink bats which they then donate to be sold at an auction which the money going to the cancer society. What a nice thing of them to do.

While there we ate at Culver's which is our favorite frozen custard place to eat at and also went to Costco to stock up on groceries and get gas with our Costco card (saves a few pennies per gallon).

We visited another time Abraham Lincoln's birthplace (very interesting) and will go back there this fall when they are done with the restorations. We found out at Amazon.com that Lincoln couldn't have worked for Amazon if he was still alive as he didn't have a high school diploma and without that you won't be hired.

Abe Lincoln's family

One day we went to Lexington where we will go again on the 5th of October to see the EAA B17 WWII bomber. While there we saw the Post castle and we also went to Harrodsburg where we saw the Shaker village. We found out that there are only 3 Shaker people left in all of America. The reason is that they don't believe in procreation and the industrial revolution put them mostly out of business. They were against conversion to mass production. They were craftsmen and made beautiful furniture and other things out of different woods. They also built those stone walls (one was 25 miles long).

Post Castle.

Shaker stone wall.

We have seen many tobacco fields. What a big leaves they have. They are harvested standing in piles and hung over rods either inside an open barn or just out in the fields. We found out why most barns are painted black in Kentucky. They absorb the heat from the sun to dry the tobacco and black paint is (or was) the cheapest paint you can buy.  The tobacco leaves look pretty yukky!

Tobacco field.

Soon after we arrived in Campbellsville we found out that Taylor County is a wet/dry county. What this means is that you can't buy any liquor (no wine, beer or hard liquor) in any store -- this makes a dry county but if a restaurant can serve 50 people or more they can sell you an alcoholic drink with your meal. You can't go in just for a drink. So this makes it the wet part of wet/dry. Funny thing though. We walked to downtown this morning and along the side of the road we saw empty beer bottles and an occasional whiskey bottle. So, you can't take the booze out of the county.

Nashville, TN until Campbellsville, KY

We had a great time in Nashville. Our friends, Gloria and Rick, showed us true Southern hospitality. We had a great time with them and we did a lot of sightseeing. We went to Loretta Lynn's ranch. Boy, was that a big place. A beautiful campground which we wish we would have stayed in instead of the KOA campground we stayed in W. Memphis, AR. We paid much more for staying there then we would have at Loretta Lynn's place and it wasn't nearly as nice. We would highly recommend staying there. She has a museum that is 18000 square feet which has all of her dresses and mementos from her life as well as movies about her life and of some of the important singers she sang with. In the gift store you could buy all kinds of souvenirs -- all of them were autographed by her personally.

We toured the little mine and saw a replica of the house she grew up in. It was very small and meagerly furnished. The plantation house where she originally lived is now a museum as well and the house she presently lives in (part-time) is behind it. It was quite interesting and Gloria was impressed and said she might never have gone there if we hadn't taken her there.
One day we went to the Lane Motor Museum where we saw mostly European automobiles from the past. We even saw a car (a Renault) we used to have in Germany. There were some very unusual cars and motorcycles and motorized bicycles from days gone by. The museum is owned by Jerry Lane who got his first car for Christmas when he was only 12 years old. The only problem was that it came in pieces and he needed to restore it and put it back together. It took him 4 years to finish it and his very first car he drove.
The car seen below is a car that could be driven from the front or the back. Some police man in France had to go up a road and needed to turn around. However the road was so narrow that he had a terrible time doing so. He came up with the idea of making a car that could be driven from both sides.

The picture below is one of the first Harley Davidson motorcycles. When you get too old to pick up one of those heavy Harley's you can always get one of these. Ha, ha!!!

Next we went to Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, TN. Funny thing, they brew all that whiskey but it is located in a "dry" county which means they can't sell any alcohol in that county and the few limited bottles you could buy there could not be opened until you were inside your house or in a "wet" county. We were lucky in that we just got done with our tour when they had to stop giving tours because it started pouring rain and thunder and lightening which didn't quit for over an hour. 

Below is a picture of premixed cola with whiskey which can't be sold in America (don't know exactly the reason why).  Another bottle, Jack Daniels Silver Select Single Barrel, is 100 proof and can only be bought at airports when people fly out of the country. 

While in Lynchburg we also went downtown Lynchburg where one of the interesting things to see was Miss Mary Bobo's boarding house was. It now is a restaurant where you need to make a reservation to be able to eat. It is always full.  The boarding house began in 1908 when the young spinster Miss Mary Bobo took over the historic Salmon Hotel. Miss Bobo died in 1983 just five weeks before her 102nd birthday. She remained sharp-witted and involved in the Boarding house all of her life. 

Finally, we went to the Corvette Museum which was quite interesting as well. They build 8 Corvettes per hour and only when ordered. You can actually watch your Corvette being built, if you choose to do so.  Below is a picture of Gary in one of the Corvettes they let you sit in. We found it hard, at our age, to get in and out of the car. So all we can do now is dream about the car. However, back in the 90s we did get to drive the Corvette Gary's cousin's husband owned. We did enjoy it then.

We are now in Campbellsville, KY where we are working for Amazon.com Will tell more about that in our next blog. 

Petrified Forest, Arizona until Nashville, Tennessee

Before we left the Petrified Forest we were invited to a barbecue at Todd's place. He had invited lots of people and there was way too much food but Todd was a very gracious host. He got the barbecue so hot that he actually burned off some of his hair.  The law enforcement people quickly got him some appropriate clothing to protect him. He was alright though and we all had a great time.

July 4th was the day of our leaving the Petrified Forest. It was a busy day as I did all the laundry before we left so we could start out with plenty of clean clothing. We invited Tammo to come over one last time and had a nice visit with him. He joined us for our early lunch and had some ice cream with us. He said it was too early for him to eat lunch. Jerry who runs the lunchroom at the gift shop had ordered my favorite ice cream (mint chocolate chip) and he wanted to make sure we ate plenty of it before we left as he thought he would be stuck with it. No chance!!! Everybody liked it so much that the whole big container was gone in 4 days. We took a nice picture of him and his dogs Molly and Bud who are his kids.  They are beautiful dogs and very playful.  Earlier that week we met Norbert from Austria who came to the Petrified Forest to work with the horses. He is very skilled in that area as that is what he does in Austria. Unfortunately we didn't get to see him too much.

  

Since Norbert is from Austria and Tammo from the Netherlands, the three of us talked quite a bit about the soccer game and the world series. Tammo and I were rooting for the Netherlands to become the world champion. We ended up in second place. Not bad!

We didn't drive too far as we got kind of a late start. We stopped at the Dancing Eagle Casino on exit 108 on Interstate 40 in New Mexico. We could have stayed in their campground and paid $10.00 for hook-ups but since we had water and empty gray and black water tanks and the weather was cool we decided to just stay in the parking lot. We registered with the casino and we each got a coupon for $10.00 off for gas because we were from out of state. We used the coupons the next day and filled up our truck for $16.91-- so we came out ahead that night. We didn't gamble as we are not lucky and decided to keep the money we had. 

Next day we drove to Vega, TX and stayed in the Walnut RV park. We had to pay $20.00 but we figured we were still ahead of the game. Besides that it was hot and humid and we needed airconditioning. Vega is a nice little town just off Interstate 40. We were the only guests at the RV park and the owners were very happy to talk to some new folks. Below are some pictures of Vega, TX.

After a nice breakfast we drove on (still on Interstate 40) and got just in time to the Firelake Casino just east of Oklahoma City as the weather got really bad after we got there. It poured buckets and they even had to close I-40 as the road was flooding. We met our new friends Jenny and David who told us about being able to park for free with full hook-ups if we registered at the casino. This was really good as it was not only hot and muggy, but very buggy and the parking lot had lots of semis running their engines. 

We spent quite a bit of time with Jenny and David and exchanged addresses etc. We had a great visit. They invited us to stay with them in Alabama and will come and visit us in Nashville, if possible.

The next day we made it to Holiday Island, just outside Eureka Springs, Arkansas where we stayed with our friends Jim and Elaine. We had stayed with them last fall and enjoyed their friendship and their hospitality. We really like that part of America except this time it rained just about day and night (almost every day) and the humidity was really hard to take. Also, we made lots of chiggers happy as they found both of us a tender meal. You should have seen our legs even though we were wearing long pants. We did quite a bit of sight-seeing while we were there. 

 

The pictures above were taken at the Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri which is right on Table Rock Lake. The place was huge area wise with beautifully landscaped gardens and had over 2000 rooms and cabins. It is owned by the same people who own the Bass Pro Shop. The house on the right is where president Truman stayed and fished some times.  

The pictures above were taken at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs which is a favorite place for weddings to take place. We had a great brunch while there. We walked up and down those and other steps while seeing more of Eureka Springs.

Above some more pictures of Eureka Springs. The one in the middle is taken in front of Jim's (not the Jim we stayed with) coffee house where we enjoyed coffee and other good things several times while we were there. For those of us who are always worried about getting thin, take the advice of the guy on the right.  More next time.