Amazon – just walking in circles

Posted on November 7, 2014 by liv2rv

We are just over the halfway point in our jobs at Amazon. Which means Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner! After several weeks of picking Halloween costumes and decorations, the merchandise has switched to all things turkey related. Tablecloths, roasting pans, turkey injectors and basting brushes seem to be the popular seasonal items now. I like it when the holidays follow the calendar.

Of course, we are still picking the usual items. IPhone 6 accessories have been very popular, more so than any other brand of cell phone combined. The ‘Call of Duty’ video game was released this week, and we picked hundreds of those. Disney ‘Frozen’ toys are very popular, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Monster dolls continue to be very popular as well.

Overtime has already started for the Inbound shifts (receiving and stowing). For workcampers, it is mandatory to do 50 hours, and voluntary if you want the 60 hours. Outbound (picking and packing) is not expected to see any overtime until after Thanksgiving. This is how the schedule went last year as well. A few new folks in picking were a little concerned about not getting any overtime, but once they understood we cannot pick what is not on the shelves, they seemed to understand. And most people wait until December to start their shopping. That’s when we will be doing the 60 hours (my mind is willing, but my body is still cringing!!). By Tuesday night (which is our ‘Friday’), we are pretty tired and usually fall asleep watching television around 8pm! Yes, this RV life can be very glamorous!

The 12th and final group of workcampers will be starting November 11th. They have also started hiring the seasonal temporary employees as well. They offer both full-time and weekends only shifts. We will see a lot of the temp workers in the picking department. At the end of each shift, we do have to pass through metal detectors. It usually takes a couple of minutes to get through, but the lines will start to get a lot longer now. Amazon does provide anyone that wants a clear plastic fanny pack or purse, which does make it easier to go through the lines.

For anyone with pets

Makena’s dog food was starting to get precariously low, so we started looking online for retailers that sell her Innova brand of dog food. The closest store was 44 miles away (one way). Amazon is pretty pricey for dog and cat food (although they sell a lot of it), so we decided to try out Chewy.com. We have no affiliation with the website, so if you click on the link, we don’t get any money or anything. But we are posting this because of our very positive experience with them. Not only did they have very competitive prices, but free shipping on orders over $49.00.

We placed an order on Wednesday, and about 2 minutes after we submitted it, we received a call from a pleasant customer service rep confirming our shipping address, since our billing address is SD and our shipping address is KY. About 3 hours later we received an e-mail stating our order was processed and ready for shipping, and they provided the UPS tracking number. This morning (Friday), I was out walking Makena and saw the UPS man delivering our package to the campground office. Everything was well packed. Our package totaled 38 pounds, so we were very pleased we did not have to pay for shipping. And Makena has a few toys for Christmas (oops, I guess I am one of those that buys Christmas presents before December!!). The super fast shipping makes it great for any RV’er.

Quote for the day: “In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember your customer is only one mouse click away.” – Doug Warner

Amazon – has it been 4 weeks already??!!

Posted on October 24, 2014 by liv2rv

Wow, we can’t believe we have just finished our fourth week at Amazon. What a difference a year makes!

Last year, our first at Amazon, was so frustrating at the beginning. The physical part of walking all day was not so much a problem. But the confusion of learning where everything was in the building, as well as the mind-numbing tedious nature to our jobs made for a difficult first month. This year was truly a ‘piece of cake’!

The two hardest parts of Picking is learning the buildings, as you will be all over the place, and you must do so in a very timely manner. The second part is just accepting the fact that Picking is a very, very boring job. You will spend most of the day talking to yourself, as that is who you will be working with! Breaks and lunch are the only time you really have to talk with anyone, other than a quick ‘hi’ when you are passing people in the building.

You can prepare for the physical nature of the job, but the mental part was truly an adjustment. This year, knowing full well what we were getting into, made for a much easier transition. You have to give yourself 4 weeks to not only condition your body, but your mind as well. Most of the folks who quit, usually do so before their fourth week. But if you can stick it out, you will meet a lot of nice people, learn about good/bad places to work, and get in shape as well.

Heartland Campground

This year we decided to stay at the campground that is technically across the street from Amazon in Campbellsville, KY, Heartland Campground. Most people here refer to it as the ‘rockpile’, as it is really nothing more than a gravel parking lot, with white paint outlining your site. But it has 50 amp, water and sewer, and Amazon pays 100% of the cost. Although the Green River State Park where we stayed last year is beautiful, we decided to save time and gas money by walking to work. The parking lot at Amazon gets very congested after Thanksgiving, and we spent a lot of time waiting in long lines.

Heartland Campground

If you look closely at the right center of the picture, you can see Amazon. Not exactly ‘across the street’. From our door to Amazon, it takes us 8 minutes to walk (a little quicker on those 45 degree mornings!)

Amazon in the distance

Here is a zoomed in photograph of Amazon from the roof of our fifth wheel.

Amazon

This campground has space for 100 RV’s, of all sizes and shapes. We opted for the farthest row from Amazon, as it overlooks some green space. We chose our spot so Makena would be looking into trees, and not other people. It also is a good area to walk Makena and play some football (it’s always about the pets, you know!)

view out back window

Amazon Updates

This week we attended the ‘all hands on deck’ meeting for the month of October. It is the last all staff meeting for the year. The first thing the general manager emphasized, was that this facility was not going to close. Last month, it was announced the center in Coffeysville, Kansas will be closing in February. (this is one of four sites they hire workcampers at). All the employees at that location can transfer to any facility of their choosing. Apparently since that announcement, the rumors were flying that this location would be next. The GM emphasized they have just signed a new long-term lease here, and they were making many improvements to the facility, including the repaving of the parking lot, which has already begun. That seemed to make a lot of people happy.

They also talked about the projections for peak season, as well as overtime. It looks like we will be able to get the same amount of overtime as last year, for outbound (picking and packing). Inbound (stowing and receiving), will have even more overtime opportunities. They will be hiring another 1500 people for the peak season, so the building will be getting pretty full, as it was last year.

The employees celebrating their 15 years at this location were also announced to the group. The GM said this location has the most employees with the longest tenure at Amazon. In addition to receiving an additional grant of $2000.00 in stock options, they received a $100 Visa gift card, and a nice jacket. One of the gals wore an orange shirt with the words “15 years of hard time” on the back! That got a laugh out of the group. She said in 4 years she will be ‘paroled’!

The GM also talked about the bonus for the regular employees for October. Apparently, every month that you have perfect attendance at Amazon, you get a 4% bonus. During the months of October thru December, it is doubled. And if the facility meets their production goal, there is a 6% bonus for the employees. The GM said they are on track to meeting the production bonus, which means the employees with perfect attendance will receive a bonus of 14% for the month, based on their base pay. That made a lot of people happy.

We haven’t been doing too much on our days off. Just resting and getting caught up on some things we neglected this summer.

Quote for the day: “All things are difficult, before they are easy.” – Thomas Fuller

Odds and Ends

Posted on December 13, 2013 by liv2rv

After 6 days in a row, and about 75 miles of walking, we had a day off on Thursday. We were expecting to go back to work today (Friday) for mandatory overtime, but it was cancelled. At first we were disappointed, but we appreciated another day of rest. And we made sure it was a day of excitement, with laundry, defrosting the freezer, clipping Makena’s nails, and making a big pot of chili to go with another Columbo movie!!

On Monday, we did get together with Karen and Al, whose blog I have been following for awhile now. (http://wishuponanrvstar.blogspot.com/) It has been fun getting to meet all the folks who have helped to inspire us to live our dreams.

This week we did have a telephone job interview, for Crazy Horse Memorial. We did accept the jobs, and we are both looking forward to spending May thru September of 2014 in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. We will be working in the gift shop. You can check it out at: http://crazyhorsememorial.org So if you are out that way, please let us know so we can get together. They do have a campground right at the memorial, so we can walk or bicycle to work.

There is one thing this time a year that I will miss…and no it isn’t snow and bitter cold!! My sister Margie and I have been having a “cookie bake-a-thon” for over 25 years. We spend 3 days doing nothing but making Christmas cookies. Day 1 is planning and mixing the dough. Day 2 is baking, and Day 3 is decorating/frosting and boxing up the cookies for gifts for family and friends. And of course at the end of each night, we would have a tasty Tom and Jerry!!!

When we were at the grocery store the other day, I just felt very sad when I looked at the display of baking ingredients….

Here are some past photos:

Margie and I

The supplies

The finished product!

Chief cookie inspector

end of the night!

Quote for the day: “Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.” – Barbara Jordan

A need for speed

Posted on November 15, 2013 by liv2rv

We visited the National Corvette Museum, as well as the assembly plant for the corvette, both in Bowling Green, KY. Tours for the GM plant just re-opened this fall. The 2014 Corvette is a completely new design, and is considered to be the 7th Generation of the Corvette. The engine is still built in Detroit, although they are developing an area of the plant that will include engine assembly next year. The underbody is aluminum instead of steel, and the hood is a carbon fiber material, which reduces the weight of the car. It has 505 horsepower with speeds up to 200 MPH. It will get 29 MPG on the highway, making it the most fuel-efficient of the sports cars. And the biggest change, it no longer has the “bubble” rear window that corvettes were known for.

2014 Corvette

Bowling Green Assembly Plant

The plant tour costs $7.00, and no cameras are allowed inside. Robots assemble the underbody of the car, and everything else is done by humans. They can produce about 170 cars per day. It was a very interesting process watching a car being assembled. Corvette has many quality assurance checks during the process. We were both impressed by the tour, and would highly recommend it if you are in the area.

If you purchase a Corvette, you do have the option of picking it up at the museum. I would recommend that, as there are some perks the new owner receives. They are given a “baby book” of photos of the car as it travels through the assembly plant. And, the owner can go right on to the line at the end, and start their vehicle. They just can’t drive it out of the factory. After the factory tour, we headed down the road to the museum.

The museum costs $10.00 per person, but they had given us half-price coupons in our Amazon employee welcome package, so it was only $10 for both of us. The museum starts out with displays on Corvette’s early history, and has a Mobil service station display with early Corvette’s. There are areas devoted to the racing teams, design and engineering. Another section has a large display of various models of Corvettes, including the only remaining Corvette that was built in 1983. There is also an exhibit hall where they have special exhibits. Currently, it is on motorcycles.

will they notice it missing?

This is one of the first Corvette’s ever built, in 1953. It has a MSRP of $3,400.00. You could add a radio for $150!

1953 Corvette – 1st year

1957 Corvette

Mobil Gas station with 1960’s Corvettes.

gas was 25 cents!

1960 Corvette

These are some of the Corvette’s that were the pace car at the Indianapolis 500 over the years.

Indy 500 pace cars

These are some of the early model motorcycles that were in the special exhibit area.

If you decide to pick up your new Corvette in Bowling Green, they have a special area in the museum to pick it up at. They really spend a lot of time going over the car with the owner, probably more so than you would get at a dealer. There were a lot of happy faces on the people picking up their new vehicles. The sticker price on these cars are around $77,000.

waiting for their owners

The owner then gets to drive the vehicle out of the museum, and all the employees come over to cheer them on.

proud owner driving off in white Corvette

We both had our favorites. Dan loved the 1960’s Corvettes, made popular by the television show Route 66.

What Dan wants

I loved the 2014 model.

what I want

But then reality kicks in…..

What we can afford!

Quote for the day: “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” – George Carlin

Final stop on the Bourbon Trail

Posted on November 1, 2013 by liv2rv

Wednesday turned out to be a pretty nice day, low 70’s, so we decided to complete the final to stops on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We started at Heavens Hill, in Bardstown, KY. We had been here before, so we did skip the tour, but got our passport stamped. Their visitors center has a lot of interesting information on the history of bourbon.

Heaven Hill had a huge fire several years ago that destroyed over a dozen warehouses. As with all the distillery’s, the warehouses are spaced pretty far apart, but once several thousand barrels of bourbon starts on fire, there isn’t much anyone can do to contain it.

Heaven Hill warehouses

Below is an example of a copper pot that was used in the past by moonshiners.

A simple copper still pot

Heaven Hill has on display many historical photographs from the days of Prohibition.

Heaven Hill was founded by William Heavenhill. It is believed that a typists error on the distillers permit put a space in between Heaven and hill, and the company could not afford the fee to have it corrected, so it was left as two words. Their main brands of bourbon are Elijah Craig and Evan Williams. Elijah Craig is considered the “father” of bourbon, as he was a minister, and was the first person to char the barrels that the whiskey is placed in for aging. Evan Williams was Kentucky’s first commercial distiller, rolling out the first barrel in 1783.

After Heaven Hill, we headed to our final stop on the tour, Jim Beam, in Clermont, KY. Beam is considered to be the number one bourbon distillery by volume. We had also done their tour last year, but they completely revamped it, and built a brand new visitors center for 2013, so we decided to go on their tour. At $10, it was the most expensive of the tours. They had to raise the price of their tour because so many people were stealing their tasting glasses, that they now give them as a “complimentary” gift! Also on our tour was a number of students from the national Future Farmers of America (FFA) convention that is going on in Louisville. You don’t have to be 21 to go on the tour, only to sample the product. It was good to see the students learning about the importance of the grains. After all, they could be the future farmers providing these important ingredients.

Jim Beam complex

The tour this year was very interactive and informative. This is the new visitors center:

lounging on the rocking chair

The tour starts out by going over a small-scale example of a distillery, and then goes into the main plant to see their operations. During the tour, visitors have an opportunity to fill a barrel, dump a barrel, and rinse out bottles.

We were able to watch the bottling of the single batch of Knob Creek. Dan participated in the rinsing of the bottles. The bottles are not rinsed with water, only bourbon. You could then put a sticker with your initials on the bottle, and follow it along during the filling, labeling and hand dipping of the bottles. They only hand dip the single batch bottles. Then they will engrave the bottle with today’s date. Follow along on our bottle’s journey….

single barrel Knob Creek

rinsing the bottle

placing it on the filling line

Dan’s bottle “DVA”

filling

capping

Unlike Makers Mark, they don’t let you dip your own bottles.

hand dipping

The finished product!

Now if anyone wants to join us in the “sampling”, come on down to Kentucky! We’ll be here until December 24th!. Continuing on with our tour, we went into one of the barrel warehouses.

barrel warehouse at Jim Beam

Jim Beam has two warehouses that sit on either side of a Baptist Church.

this bourbon’s safe

Jim Beam also has a huge display of souvenir containers that actually contained their bourbon and was given out as gift items.

This is part of their copper pots. They have one above ground, and one below ground in a blast proof container.

Final stop on the tour was the tasting room. They give you a plastic card that you insert into the machine below, and it dispenses two small samples of your choice.

The tasting machines

And now onto our favorites. We both enjoyed the Woodford Reserve the best, as a good sipping whiskey. Makers Mark was also good, but the triple distilling at Woodford made their whiskey a bit smoother. The regular Jim Beam or the Four Roses yellow label would be good for all the recipes that call for bourbon in the ingredients.

As far as tours goes, again we felt the Woodford Reserve tour was the best, followed by both Makers Mark and Jim Beam. If you are in the Kentucky area for a week or so, the Bourbon Trail is a fun thing to do. Except for two, the distillery’s are 20 – 50 miles apart, so this is not something that could be easily done in a weekend.

Quote for the day: “Whiskey is by far the most popular of all remedies that won’t cure a cold.” – Jerry Vale

Abe’s birthplace & boyhood home

Posted on October 27, 2013 by liv2rv

On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas and Nancy in a small log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm just south of Hodgen’s Mill, Kentucky (now called Hodgenville). Abraham was named after his grandfather. He had an older sister, Sarah. Thomas had purchased the farm in December 1808, for $200 for 300 acres of land. The Lincoln’s moved to Knob Creek area 2 years after his birth, due to a land dispute on the Sinking Spring Farm.

Hodgensville, KY

In 1907, an effort began to preserve Lincoln’s birthplace, and what was thought was the actual cabin that he was born in. Over 100,000 citizens donated $350,000 to build a memorial for Lincoln, and his log cabin. President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1909. In 1911, President William Howard Taft dedicated the memorial. It was almost 50 years later, when they determined it was not the exact cabin, but is considered symbolic of the cabin.

Lincoln’s Birthplace 56 steps to the top

There are 56 steps on the memorial, one for each year of Lincoln’s life. Inside the memorial is the log cabin that is symbolic of the period. It is still the original cabin that was placed in the memorial in 1907. There is nothing inside this cabin, and nothing else inside the memorial.

Park Rangers take good photos

only 1 window & door

The visitor center of the park has a nice 15 minute video on Lincoln’s time at this farm, along with what they believe the inside of the cabin would have looked like.

Life in a 1 room log cabin

On the grounds you can still see the spring that gave the farm the Sinking Spring name.

Sinking Springs on Lincoln’s birthplace

In 1811, the Lincoln’s moved 10 miles northeast to a farm on Knob Creek. Lincoln stated his earliest recollections of his life were at the Knob Creek farm, where he helped his parents farm many crops on the fertile soil. There are no original buildings remaining from Lincoln’s time on this property.

Knob Creek Property

The land at Knob Creek is a beautiful area, and the National Park Service has left it undeveloped. There is a walking trail that goes around the park, so you can walk and hike in the same area that Lincoln did when he was a boy. The park service has planted a small garden to represent all the crops that would have been grown on the land by the Lincoln family.

Example of garden crops

The park service also obtained and rebuilt the one room log cabin owned by the family of Austin Gollaher. Austin was Abraham’s childhood friend. The boys were out playing near a creek one day and Lincoln fell in and almost drowned. It was Austin that had saved is life. Imagine how different our country would be today, if Lincoln was not the 16th President.

Austin Gollaher’s cabin

In 1816, Lincoln’s father lost his court battle over the Sinking Spring Farm. In addition, the family was being evicted from the Knob Creek farm over a land dispute. In December of 1816, the Lincoln family packed up and moved to Indiana. Lincoln would never return to the state of Kentucky.

In 1928, Hattie and Chester Howard purchased the Knob Creek farm, and they built the Lincoln Tavern on the site to both honor Lincoln and capitalize on tourism in the area. The park service took over the site on 2001. The tavern building is not open to the public, and the park service has not decided what to do with it.

The Lincoln Tavern

Quote for the day: “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

General Patton

Posted on October 25, 2013 by liv2rv

We have decided to take a break from distillery tours, since some others venues have now opened back up. Thursday we drove up to Fort Knox, Kentucky to see the General George Patton Museum of Leadership (cost: free). This is the Army’s only museum dedicated to the history of Army leadership at all levels. It was first opened in 1949 as the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor and was in operation until 2010. Many of the tanks have since been moved to Georgia, and the museum is currently undergoing a transformation with the new leadership format. There are many exhibits that are still under construction. Probably by next year, it will be completed. Regardless, it was well worth a visit. The museum covers Army history from 1775 right up to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It is also the first museum we have visited that encourages you to bring in your smart phone or tablet device. They have free Wi-Fi, and encourage you to download the museums app. There are multiple spots where you can scan a code into the smart-phone, and it will provide additional information and videos on the display that is in front of you.

Patton Museum

They do have a few tanks remaining outside the museum.

seems like a small tank

They also have Armor Memorial Park outside, and this monument caught my attention, as it had a wreath by it. It was honoring the F Force troop in Vietnam. My two older brothers served in Vietnam, thank you Greg and Jerry. And thank you to all our veterans.

Vietnam Memorial

General George S. Patton, Jr. (born 1885), came from a military family, and attended both the Virginia Military Institute and West Point. He worked his way up through the ranks and had 438,000 GI’s under his command in the Third Army in WWII.

Patton’s West Point uniform

Patton, as a Lieutenant, participated in the pentathlon in Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden in 1912. After the Olympics, he studied with the French Cavalry and is credited with designing the M1913 cavalry saber. The design became known as the “Patton Saber” and was effective at piercing an opponent. It was the last saber issued by the Army. Below is a photo of the saber, along with a toy wooden saber that Patton played with as a child.

Prototype and wooden toy sword

Patton purchased a Colt 45 revolver in 1916 in Texas, and carried it with him until his death in 1945. This revolver was designed in 1872, and was the standard issue service revolver used by the Army until 1892.

Patton’s Colt 45

Who knew Patton was an RV’er??!! This was his quarters that he lived in when he was out with the troops. Patton was loved by his soldiers because he stayed with them, unlike other Generals that would stay in hotels. Patton believed an effective leader needs to be out front with his soldiers.

Patton’s ‘RV’

Inside Patton’s ‘RV’

Patton’s Leadership

Below is a photo of the restored 1938 Cadillac Limousine, Series 75, that was given to him in 1945 by his troops after it was seized from the Nazi’s.

Patton’s Limo

On Sunday, December 9, 1945, General Patton was riding in the back seat, heading out for a pheasant hunt when his driver, a private first class struck a truck that turned in front of them. Patton was thrown forward and struck his head on the glass divider, which fractured his neck and paralyzed him. Patton was hospitalized, and ordered that no investigation be made of the accident, as he did not want any discipline to occur of either driver. The museum displays part of his hospital records. He was reported to be improving, but 12 days after the accident his vitals rapidly declined and he passed away from a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in his lung). Patton was only 60 years old when he passed away.

General Patton

The museum has a large collection of weapons.

Coach T your dad could add this one to his collection!

And tanks

Hanging with the tank guys

They also had a small recognition of General Colin Powell, and listed his 13 rules to live by. I think we should all follow these (you may need to double-click on this photo to read all of them).

Colin Powell’s excellent tips to live by

The newest exhibit at the museum, which arrived on September 11, 2013 and is still under construction, is a fire truck from the US Army that was on duty at the Pentagon on 9/11/2001. The truck was damaged during the attack on the Pentagon.

US Army Foam 161 was on duty at Pentagon

Damage from Pentagon 9/11/2001

We will definitely return to this museum, as it is only going to improve as it develops more exhibits.

Quote for the day: The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. – George S. Patton

Continuing on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Posted on October 18, 2013 by liv2rv

Thursday was a bit rainy, so we decided to just go and visit some more distilleries. There are seven major distilleries that are a part of the Bourbon Trail. You get a passport that lists each one, and when you visit the distillery, you get your passport stamped. Once you have visited all seven locations, then you can turn the passport in for a “free” t-shirt (not factoring in the cost of gas and admission fees for the tours!)

We did four distilleries on Thursday, but due to painfully slow internet service today at the park, I will only discuss the first two. It is simply taking forever to upload photos. I will do a follow-up post with the second ones, which also included a craft brewery. The park is again sold out, and they are gearing up for Halloween this weekend. We are stocked up on candy for the kids (did not find any boxes of Dots though…bummer!)

Our fist stop was Four Roses Bourbon, in Lawrenceburg, KY. The tour is free. The distillery, built in 1910, is of Spanish Mission-style architecture and is on the National Register of Historic Places. They are the only distillery that uses single-story rack warehouses, so they do not have to rotate barrels and the barrels are not subject to temperature variances like the barrels in multi-story buildings are. Given the age of the distillery, it was very cramped for a large tour group, but nice to see they are still using equipment that is older than I am. We were able to sample a single barrel bottle, small batch bottle and the Four Roses Yellow, which they recommend for mixed drinks. The Yellow label was good.

Welcome to Four Roses

Four Roses Distillery

old copper pot at Four Roses

overview of fermentation vats

Our second stop was at Wild Turkey, also in Lawrenceburg. Cost of their tour is $5.00. They are situated on over 900 acres. Wild Turkey recently created a new distillery and bottling plant in 2010. By volume, they produce the 2nd most whiskey in the world. It was a very industrial-feeling tour, unlike the other distilleries. Very clean and modern, most everything is now run by computers. We were able to sample several different types of their bourbon whiskeys. Personally, I did not like any of them. I thought they were too harsh tasting.

The new distillery building

They have a big barrel in their fermentation room for photo ops. Even with all the new modern equipment, the distillery still shuts down in July and August, because they are not able to keep the temperature in this room below 90 degrees. The temperature of the yeast must stay under 90 degrees or it will spoil the whole batch. You can see the vats behind us.

giddy-up!

Everything in the tour at Wild Turkey was behind glass, so the indoor pictures didn’t turn out too well. Every day the master distillers sample their product in this room. They can only sample for 15 minutes at a time, or else their taste buds get over saturated.

quality control room

Look for part two of our day coming soon! Hope everyone has a great weekend! Back to work for us tomorrow!

Quote for the day: “He was a wise man who invented beer” – Plato

Life at the park

Posted on October 4, 2013 by liv2rv

I wasn’t going to post tonight, but thought I would just put in our two cents on camping. After work we went grocery shopping (we have 2 choices….Wal-mart and Kroger). We came back to the state park and found it was almost full. We were amazed at how many people came during the day, and are continuing to come in tonight.

We have seen many tent campers, pop ups, and even a Prevost. A Prevost is a very high end motor home, usually around 1 million dollars. Just think for a minute: where else would you have a person in a $50 tent parked next to someone in a million dollar house on wheels? And they all get along?

We have been listening to 2 guys with guitars a few sites over play everything from Johnny Cash to Elton John to The Travelling Willbury’s. Another site was having a big birthday bash. Just a few minutes ago, a couple pulled in with a pop-up and 2 teenage daughters. Once they got all set up in the dark, they plugged in their party lights. I think they should have plugged these in first, so they could have seen what they were doing!

It has been super quiet all week long and we love the noise and business of this evening. No matter what your choice of ‘home’ is, we are all here to enjoy the great outdoors. We are so happy Kentucky has a wonderful park for everyone of all types to enjoy. This is what life is truly all about.

Quote for the day: A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man – Lana Turner

And God said…..

Posted on October 3, 2013 by liv2rv

….shop at Amazon!! Today I was going around picking the merchandise, and my scanner said “Communion Wafers”. I paused for awhile, as I thought these came from some special store, but apparently not!! I guess they really do sell everything.

Makena wants to know which one of her dog blog followers ordered the book “The Wonderful World of Squirrels”?!! I picked one of those books today. Makena would like to borrow it, so she can look at the photos!

Dan said he was ready to call Human Resources today, to see if I told them to make him exercise more. He was pretty pooped out tonight, as he had to pick in all 3 buildings.

When we got home, Makena was ready to play football. During the week, the tent site area is empty, so we have been taking her over there and letting her run around off leash…..shhhh, don’t tell the park ranger!

Monday thru Friday morning, the tent site area is vacant.

tent sites

It is really a beautiful area, right on the lake. During the week, this area becomes Makena’s playland;

Playtime!!

RV’ers have a lot of pets. Lucy has been trying everyday to get Makena to play with her. She is very friendly, but Makena loves people, not other dogs. Makena needs her cousin Reagan to come and visit to play with Lucy. And Rudy can come down and chase all the ducks and geese that hang around the shoreline!

I just want to play with you!

Quote for the day: Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. – Roger Caras

Liv2RV

Living and working around the country in a RV

Category Archives: Kentucky

Amazon – just walking in circles

Amazon – has it been 4 weeks already??!!

Odds and Ends

A need for speed

Final stop on the Bourbon Trail

Abe’s birthplace & boyhood home

General Patton

Continuing on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Life at the park

And God said…..