Our Traveling Lifestyle: KENTUCKY - Sept. 24 to Dec. 22, 2010

Welcoming us to town

Welcoming us to the RV park

Our RV “city” in Sept.

Our RV “city” in Dec.

Campground Office with a typical Autumn display

We arrived in Campbellsville, Kentucky to be part of the seasonal work force known as Work Campers at Amazon.com. Our home for the next 3 months was in the Heartland RV Park, just one of the six campgrounds housing us Work Campers. Work Campers are people who travel the country seeking seasonal work either in return for a free site or salary. Amazon offered both. We learned the Amazon slogan of WORK HARD, HAVE FUN, MAKE HISTORY and that our jobs existed, as Tammy, one of our bosses put it, “Because the customer says so”. Amazon.com wanted us to see that the customer gets what he wants, when and where he wants it, without any hassles, mistakes or damaged goods.

Amazon.Com’s SDF-1 Facility

WORK HARD:

We worked 4 - 10 hour days, (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) from 5:00 PM to 3:30 AM. As receivers we opened cartons coming off the delivery trucks. On the computer above our table we would enter information by scanning the bar codes outside and on each item within the carton. If there was something not correct or damaged, we would have to correct the problem before we could press the Enter button. Once that was done that item would appear as part of Amazon’s inventory. Putting too many, too few or not-ordered product into that computer makes big problems down the line. We then placed the product so that we could easily verify the exact count on each of the 3 shelves called totes on a juice cart which we moved to an area for the people who stowed or put these items in the cubbyholes throughout the 4 floors of the massive warehouse. As the peak shopping season approached, 11 hour shifts became the norm and overtime was almost mandatory for the regular employees. Work Campers however could voluntarily take overtime or not. Amazon does 70% of its business during the holidays. Everyone was drafted into working in areas not part of their regular positions whenever there was a need. Donna was sent to out-going to do gift wrapping and Mike got to be part of a relief team to give lunch and break time to the employees who work the 8 lines of cartons being prepped for shipping. Staff members worked along side us ready to give us tips and directions for keeping us safe and to improve the quality of what we were doing.

HAVE FUN:

We shared in all the activities that the regular employees were offered. There was a golf tournament, several meals serving pizza, barbecue chicken, chili and rib-eye sandwiches. We were given Thanksgiving pies, and chocolates and candy canes near Xmas. When our team made the night’s goal we got to pick $5 coupons out of a hat, good at local stores and restaurants. Emerson, our boss, brought in some of his Brazilian music to replace the one tape that we had been hearing night after night after night. During our breaks we would regale each other with descriptions of the best and worst boxes or problems we encountered and give opinions as to how we would run this operation! During the beautiful autumn we toured the countryside to discover Kentucky’s charm.

MAKE HISTORY:

Our team received 2.2 million items in one week during peak season which beat the last record of 1.6 million. We were told that our excellent attendance, minimal attrition and 60% working overtime helped in having to hire fewer temps and eliminated the longer hours and shifts put in by the regular employees in the past. Our work ethic had a positive influence on them as well.

KENTUCKY CHARM

Lincoln Days in Hodgenville

As well as celebrating the life and legacy of Hodgenville’s most prominent citizen, Lincoln Days is also a home-coming event to entice onetime citizens to return and visit with friends and family. There were Little Abe and Sara and Lincoln look-a-like contests, a Pioneer Family costume contest as well as a Lincoln oratory contest held early in the day. The winners got to ride on the floats in the afternoon parade.

A Lincoln look-a-like

Quilts on display for People’s Choice and Sale

With antique car and tractor displays, a quilt show, local country music, and Pioneer games such as log splitting and log riding as well as a cornhole tournament (tossing a corn cob through a hole), the event draws much participation from near and far.

Danville’s Constitution Square

The frontier and Civil War historic places, Constitution Square, Fort Harrod and the Perryville Battlefield did not have their visitor’s centers open so we did not get full appreciation of them.

However traveling to them we did appreciate Kentucky’s changing landscape. We drove through valleys, some flat, some with rolling hills, usually dotted with farms. The hills that rimmed the valleys made the horizon look lumpy.

Quilt Squares and hanging tobacco - a common barn sight

Many black barns in Amish areas

Sometimes we could be looking over the tree tops to the wide landscape below. We would have to zigzag down and up roads with limestone cliffs hugging the roadside or with tangles of trees and brush so thick that the eyes could not see through.

A surprise coming around a curve

A visit to Loretto and the Maker’s Mark Distillery gave us a look at the famous Bourbon culture here in Kentucky. Chase, our droll tour guide, told us that Mabel Stanley told her husband that she knew her pewter was made by different artisans because they each had a maker’s mark on the bottom. Thus came the name and the signature red wax bottle cover. The grounds, the family home, the other structures as well as the tour of the small distillery made it worth the effort to go there.

Stanley Family Home

Inside this Building is the whole operation

Old drive-up liquor store

Huge ricks store the aging bourbon

Fine arts and crafts are found in Berea at the Kentucky Artisan Center and in the local shops. We had a taste of the southern classic dishes of Brown Betty and spoon bread at the historic Boone Tavern on the Berea College campus. Students work at the inn and make furniture and instruments for sale in return for their tuition-free education.

Boone Tavern

Walking around The Kentucky Guild Arts Fair held under tall trees made the looking more pleasurable.

Kentucky Guild Arts Fair

Music under the trees

With the first dusting of snow we attended a performance of Christmas in Renfro Valley. Held in a big barn, it was a delightful mix of talents with old-fashioned country sensibility. The story line referred to an Appalachian tradition, the Christmas Train. Each year around Christmas a train brings toys and entertainment to the children living in the remote areas of the Appalachians.