Lotsa Numbers – 2015 Amazon Wrap Up

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 83, Low 71)

This morning we got the email notification that our last paycheck was visible in ADP, so with our last payday that will officially bring an end to the 2015 Amazon Peak season.

So a few numbers from the season…

Hours Worked

This was a great season for overtime.

We had…

• one 23 hour introductory week
• eight 40 hour weeks (On one of those weeks Harry missed 2.5 hours due to a vet appt. and we left 30 minutes early that day for VTO.)
• three 50 hour weeks (starting November 8th)
• one 52 hour week
• three 55 hour weeks
• one 30 hour week for our last three days.

Income

This category is pretty straightforward. Harry made $9508.31 gross and I made $9529.42 gross for a total of $19,037.73. That includes our normal income and our bonus for completing the season. We were very happy with how much we made during this year’s peak.

Steps/Miles

We bought Fitbits after we got there, so the first week wasn’t included in the data. But since we started wearing them on September 4th, I walked 2,286,143 steps for a total of 1032.71 miles. That’s an average of 32,199 steps or 14.55 miles per work day.

Exercise

One of my goals for this season was to keep up my running. I feel pretty good about what I was able to accomplish. I ran every week throughout the peak season up until Thanksgiving. After that we were working 55 hour weeks and I just didn’t have the energy. But despite that I managed to run 24 times for a total of 92.45 miles.

Weight

This last number is my favorite. I was pretty discouraged about my weight when we arrived in Kentucky. I had really gotten out of the habit of running and watching what I eat over the summer. As a result, I had gained back about ten pounds since April. Once we received our Fitbits, I was really determined to get back on track with counting calories. That, and the fact that we were walking so much at work, really jumpstarted my weight loss again and as of our last day of work, I had reached my goal for the season by losing 25.7 pounds!

So far I’ve lost a total of 56.5 pounds since October 1, 2012 and I have ten pounds to go to reach my final goal. Now it’s time to see what I can accomplish now that we are finished with work for the next nine months.

Made It to Florida!

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 83, Low 69)

 

Yesterday morning was another dreary, cloudy one and as we pulled out we were both so ready to see some sunshine.

 

 

We were happy to see that the road was relatively clear as we made our way toward Atlanta. We took the west bypass around the city which was also moving along at highway speed.

 

In fact, other than a couple slow downs due to minor traffic accidents, we had a very smooth trip. We were grateful for that as yesterday was one of our longer traveling days, with a little over 400 miles to go. The skies also brightened up as we headed south.

 

By the time we arrived at the Florida state line we were enjoying a nice bright sunshiny day!

 

 

We arrived at Pecan Park RV Resort and got set up for the next few days.

 

 

We went out last night for a walk just to enjoy the warm evening air!

 

 

This morning Harry and I went out for our first run together in quite a while! It was hot and humid and sunny and wonderful!

 

 

We are lovin’ life!

Merry Christmas to All!

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 75, Low 64)

Rain, rain, rain!! I’m glad we decided to go for it on Wednesday and make our way here to Georgia, because if we were waiting for a break in the weather we wouldn’t have left yet! It’s been pretty warm, but the rain has been pretty constant.

This morning we drove over to my aunt’s house in Marietta to enjoy a great Christmas get-together and meal.

It was pleasant to be someplace decorated for the holiday, and spend some time chatting with family.

 

My aunt is a wonderful cook, and always puts on a great spread, and today was no exception!

 

 

We are here for a shorter period of time this year, so it was a much quicker visit than we have had the past couple of years. But it was still so nice to spend the holiday with family.

Then we came home and had a nap! We have still not gotten anywhere back to normal after our months with Amazon. It is so nice not to have a work schedule to think about anymore.

 

We are ending the day with a toast to the holiday in our new half marathon drinkware!

 

 

We’ve had another great Christmas Day and wishing the same to all of you!

Merry Christmas!

That's All She Wrote!

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 73, Low 64)

It has been quite the few days. We had just three days left to work when I last posted a blog, and they went pretty quickly. I entertained myself by counting down the work hours. After we got out of work on the last day, we made one last trip to our favorite local Mexican restaurant and I toasted to the end of Amazon Season #3  with one of their yummy margaritas. 

As soon as I have a few days to breathe, I will do a post covering all the number stuff from the season – probably when we get to Jacksonville.

We went back and forth over the last few days about whether we would leave Campbellsville on Wednesday or Thursday. The weather on Wednesday for the Atlanta area was looking pretty nasty on Monday night so we had all but decided to wait and go on Thursday instead. Our plan was to call the campground after work on Tuesday (our last day) and change our reservation. But then when we got home, I watched the weather one more time and it had changed, with late Wednesday into Thursday being more the time frame for the storms. So we changed back to our original time frame, planning to just get up and leave as early as we could.

We got ready early but we didn’t beat a lot of our neighbors. There were probably a dozen rigs that pulled out between 5:30 and 7 am! I don’t think there is any possible way we could pull out that early.

Even though we didn’t pull out as early as people around us, we were still ready remarkably early for us, being all hooked up and ready to go before the sun was even up.
By the time we said goodbye to all the friends who hadn’t left yet, we ended up pulling out around 8:20. Not too bad!

We were very happy to have dry roads and even a small glimmer of blue sky as we started out.

It was a dreary traveling day for the most part..here we are coming into the gloomy looking city of Nashville.

We made it almost to Chattanooga before we hit rain, but then it was rainy pretty much for the rest of the trip. We were happy to see the sign for GA knowing that our traveling day was almost at an end.

It was about 3:30 when we pulled into our spot at Harvest Moon RV Park. We were tired and ready to call it a day.












This morning we celebrated our freedom by staying in bed until almost 6 am! I am feeling so thankful at this moment that we are here and don’t have to travel today, and that we didn’t have any severe weather overnight.


Ready to do some Christmas celebratin’! 

Got the Official Word!

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 54, Low 41)

Well, it was much later this year than usual, but Friday night we finally got the official word about our release date. I think a lot of the holdup was because of the fact that Christmas is on a Friday this year. There’s been a lot of hemming and hawing about when to release us since people can still order on Monday or Tuesday and get their stuff delivered by Christmas if they use two day shipping. Now that’s last minute shopping!

There was one shift released yesterday, and you could tell who they were by the big smiles on their faces as they walked around the facility. We, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, are working through Tuesday. Oh well, we’ll get a few more bucks before we get done. Looks like the weather is going to be unsettled for our traveling on Wednesday but at least it doesn’t appear to be anything severe.

We are SO ready to be done and are counting down the days and hours!

SO close to the END!

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 47, Low 27)

(This is my first post trying out the new Open Live Writer.)

Well, we are almost there! Yesterday we worked our last half day to make our third fifty five hour week in a row. It has been a very lucrative season for us. We were really good and managed to resist the temptation to take VTO earlier in the season when it was offered almost every day for awhile. (Well, the majority of the time. We did leave one day at twenty minutes after four.) And since November when the work started to pick up, we have been working 50 hour weeks or more. I will do another post after the season is over going over all the number stuff.

Last week on our day and a half off, we did a lot of the “getting ready to leave” kind of stuff. I have the majority of our inside stuff done that I can do ahead of time, and Harry has worked on his list. Today he is planning to check the pressure in the tires and do a couple other odds and ends outside. This is the last day that we have to spend time getting ready to go. We were hoping that we would get the word that our release date had been moved up, but it is looking like we are going to be here until next Tuesday the 22nd. So after today, we will have five more days to work. If we had gotten out earlier, we would have split the trip into two days, but instead we will go all the way to Harvest Moon RV Park in Adairsville, GA next Wednesday. Good thing we’re used to getting up early!

One of the things I usually start doing when it’s almost time to travel is watch the  forecast. But this year it looks like I will not have to worry about the weather. Next week on the day we head out the high is going to be in the 70s. Guess we won’t have to watch out for snow.

Well, other than work there’s not much going on around here. We are looking forward to a change of scenery next week and spending Christmas Day at my aunt’s house in Marietta GA.

We have FIVE days to go!

Three Years

It’s so hard to believe it, but it was three years ago today that we set up in our first fulltime stop at Brookside Campground in Catskill, NY.










Looking back at these pictures, I can still remember the excitement we felt as we had our first fulltime meal that night and toasted to our new future on the road.

It was a really cold January in NY that year, and we had a couple snowstorms to contend with before we could hit the road south on January 17th, 2012 after Harry’s last day at work.













Thinking back on the places we’ve been so far, I have to say that San Antonio still remains way up there on our list of favorite stops. I loved the Riverwalk and definitely want to get back there again sometime.









We also really enjoyed our month long stay in the Keys last January.







Other than the places we’ve been and seen, I think my absolute favorite thing about fulltiming is that it provides us the opportunity to spend a lot more quality time with family.

Christmas at my aunt’s…






Harry with his cousins…

Harry and his sister in St. Augustine…

Mountain climbing with my mother….

Geocaching with my niece and nephews…

Snuggling with our grandson Schaun…

Harry with our grandson Kenny…






Looking forward to another year of great memories!

We Are Almost There!

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 60, Low 51)

This has been another week of many hours. Since our actual pay week runs from Sunday to Saturday, our “weekend” falls in the middle of the week. Right now, we are halfway through another 55 hour week. The eleven hour days ended last Saturday and we were very glad to see them end. I had initially thought that five eleven hour days would be easier to do than five ten hour days and a half day. But now that I’ve done both, I think I’ve changed my opinion. Working eleven hour days is very tiring.

Officially we have ten days left to work. We were all notified that there wouldn’t be any early releases this year, so our last day of work is scheduled for Tuesday December 22nd. There was that tantalizing word “tentative” included though, so that hasn’t stopped all the campers from hoping yet that we will get to head out a day or two early. There is a real sense of excitement now as people start to look toward the end. Very often as we meet campers throughout the day at work, even people we really don’t know, it’s very common to hear the question, “so where are you guys headed next?” Most people are heading south for warmer weather, although there are a few people who go north to spend the holidays with family.

And speaking of warmer weather, this has been a great season for our propane budget. Amazon pays for our electric but not for propane. We have several electric heating options, and the main one is our heat pump which only works down to a certain temperature, the low forties basically. If it gets colder than that we use our furnace. Last fall we spent $208.35 on propane. Yesterday Harry took our propane tank over for only our second fillup of the whole season. So our total is $35.82. Very nice! And looking at the ten day forecast we will probably not have to use our furnace again while we’re here.

Since we have only one more weekend before our departure, we started doing our “getting ready to leave” chores yesterday. Harry got the outside stuff put away and I started to pack up our pictures and the other odds and ends that get left out when we’re in one place for an extended period of time.

Ariel is thinking “uh oh, I know what happens when this container comes out! Traveling day!”

Harry and I are both ready to go and counting down every day! At the most, TEN work days left!

One Heck of a Busy Week

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 51, Low 30)

The title says it all! Since I last posted the update for last week, we have been run run running like crazy.

The week started out with a fantastic Thanksgiving Day celebration. Every day since Thanksgiving has been super wet and rainy, but not last Thursday. We woke up to a beautiful blue sky.

I took advantage of the beautiful morning to start the day with a five mile run. I feel so good that I have managed to do at least a few runs right through the season. Last year I stopped in early October, which made getting back to it in January feel like starting all over again.

After a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, we got busy getting the stuffing made and turkey ready to go in the roaster oven. Both of our previous Thanksgivings on the road, we looked for a restaurant that was open for the day, and it just didn’t do it for us. So this year we decided we were going to cook instead. A few of our friends also cooked some of the dinner so no one had to spend all day in the kitchen.

 

We also had some time for hanging out and just enjoying a glass of wine.

 

 

 

Our great spread!

 

 

 

Let’s just say no one went home hungry!

 

 

 

It was a great and relaxing Thanksgiving Day.

 

 

And good thing we had a nice day of relaxation…because the next day was BLACK FRIDAY!! In preparation for the day, the Outbound schedule was modified to eleven hour days, adding one half hour on each end of the day. Campers are not required to do more than ten hours, but of course we are encouraged to do so if we can.

So far Harry and I are managing the hours pretty well. We are tired, of course, and ready for the season to be over, but we’re not feeling as bone tired as we used to when we worked in Receiving. (Even with all the miles we walk each day, it’s just not as physical a job as hefting big heavy boxes out of trucks.)  So as of yesterday, we have worked five eleven hour days in a row. As a department, in Outbound days, we picked over 140k units on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and we were slated to do over 120k yesterday. I didn’t hear if we made it. As far as walking, I walked 16.5, 17.5, 18.7, 18.8 and 17 miles for a total of 88.5 miles in five days!!! Yes it has been ONE BUSY WEEK.

We have two more eleven hour days on Saturday and Sunday and then we go back to tens. That is when the rest of the department goes to mandatory 60s, but as I’ve mentioned previously, we aren’t going to do that this year. We are still planning to stick with 55 hour weeks, so that will mean for two weeks we will have to go in for a half day on one of our days off. Half days aren’t bad when you get off at 11 in the morning. At this point we just have our eyes on the finish line!

We still have a couple weeks left until we find out our release date, so we are just planning on working until the very end, and if we get released a day or two earlier, we will just be pleasantly surprised. Either way, it won’t be long and we’ll be packing up and heading on down the road.

At the most, we have fifteen full days left to go!