Nov. 11 week

Nov. 11 - our grandsons turned 4 today.  They had their party Saturday night, we were not present of course, but my folks and sister, Heidi, were there to help celebrate.  Katie and Jordan did their professional cake decorating again, "A Bugs Life" and "Sully" cakes.  We Face-timed with them Sunday and caught up on all the fun they had and presents they received.

Sully - "Monsters"

"A Bugs Life"

We worked overtime today (Monday) - it was a good day, we had steady work and the day went really fast.

Tuesday we drove to Owasso, OK for shopping errands.  A new Sam's Club opened there in October, it is now the closest one to us.  This was a good trip, all our familiar stores were there too, right at the same exit.  We went to Lowe's first to get more hot water heater plugs and other supplies Gary needed.  Then he dropped me off at the shoe store and went to get the oil changed in the Ford.  I had time to go through the shoe store, a "Ross" store and a Penneys.  Looking for black shoes or boots, nothing struck my fancy.  Then we stopped at the Walmart, I ran in and picked up other things I needed.  This Walmart is a little bigger and better than the one in Coffeyville.   (The captain took a nap in the car.)   Then to Sam's Club, picking up strawberries and a few staples.  Now to eat out! Pizza at Andolini's - a good choice, it was yummy. We really are missing Papa Murphy's, we will have to catch up on that when we are home in Sioux Falls.  Also, we filled up with gas in the car - Oklahoma gas is about 15 cents cheaper than Kansas prices.  We had a nice drive home.  The fall colors are pretty well gone now after the winds and the rains.
Back home, Gary plugged a heater in the water bay to prepare for the cold temps for the next couple nights - 27 and then 21 degrees at night.  We brought the water softner inside and stored it in the shower those nights - there really is no way to heat it so we can leave it outside and it is too big to fit in any of the outside bays and still be connected.

Wednesday - Saturday, back to work.  A little chilly the first couple mornings, Gary started the car early and scraped the windshield.  Luckily the roads were not slick at all.
Friday morning at beginning of the day at the standup gathering, the shift manager told me he was going to have me train on a new position, Cubiscan.  The cubiscan process is done on any new product that comes in to the warehouse, measuring and weighing it so the computer knows what box to pack it in and what postage to use when it is sent out. (Makes sense - that's how they know what box to use!)   So I stand at a station at the end of the receiver's conveyors with a computer, scanner and cubiscan machine and process each item that is sent down the conveyor.  The machine is will measure and weigh the product, I am supposed to watch the measurements to make sure they are all taken correctly and then retained.  The vendor has assigned measurements to the product, but they are not always quite correct for sending it to the buyer.
It is nice to do another job here, it's a little different than stowing every day.

Another sunset in Kansas, looking over the fishing pond at the campground.

Nov. 6 already

Our day off, Tuesday,  was rainy, we stayed inside and rested.  Wednesday back to work for the 4 days.  On Thursday after lunch, they announced we would be working 11 hour days on Friday and Saturday.  Start at 5:30 am, finish at 5:00 pm. (Camperforce workers could end their day at 4:00 if they wanted to.)  So we were up at 4:00 am and in to work for the earlier start.  The day seemed to go quickly and then at noon they announced we would end the day at 4:30 after all and we would not work the extra hour on Saturday.  All good news!
Saturday night on the way home we stopped and picked up BBQ baby back ribs at Ross's BBQ Shack.  Yum!  We bought a slab of ribs to go so we could go home and watch football.  The waitress there tempted us to stay, showing us the full plates she was serving others with ribs, corn on the cob, potatoes and then told us about the fresh peach and apple cobblers they have for desserts.  She kept laughing while she was teasing us, we promised to come back again and eat there.

Sunday we were up early and so we went to 8:00 Mass.  Had a young lady cantoring this morning with a pianist, a nice change.  Afterward we went to the grocery store to buy a treat of cinnamon rolls for brunch.  When we got home, we could see we had water leaking from the motorhome. Once again, the plug on the hot water heater had cracked, creating a leak.  But, the captain was prepared, had a supply of extra plugs and got it changed in short order.

Then we changed into our hiking clothes and headed northwest of Independence to Elk City State Park.  They have a reservoir with a large lake, campgrounds and 4 hiking trails.  It was a gorgeous sunny day.  We started with the Green Thumb Nature Trail, going through the woods with educational signs along the way.  The trail is covered with the common white gravel we see here in Kansas, but was totally covered by leaves, so we had to watch for the trees along the way that were marked with white paint.  We saw many colors of leaves and crossed the same brook three times.
Then we drove up the hills to the lookout point and hiked on the Post Oak Nature Trail.  From here we saw the dam road below, the lake and the colors across the lake.  Again, the trail was covered by leaves.  There were orange paint marks on the trees, but because the beginning was not marked clearly, we actually walked the trail backwards and only saw the orange marks when we stopped and looked backward.  We could not have got lost on this trail though, it was all on one level and the lake was on one side, the road on the other.  When done, we drove down across the dam road and found the campground below the dam.  There were half a dozen people fishing there, looked like they were catching the catfish the information described.  We took pictures of the colorful trees from down below, the sun was hitting them from the right angle.

On the Green Thumb trail

A beautiful blue color

The Elk City Reservoir road

Post Oak Trail

From the Reservoir road, looking up at the park
Nov. 10, 2013

November 2013 Begins

Back to work for our regular shift Wednesday-Saturday.  Still mostly stowing product each day, but Gary and I were both assigned to the dock area for half days.  I was unloading boxes from the semi trailer for a few hours and putting them on the conveyor they had pulled into the trailer.  Someone else would then cut the boxes open, then they were scanned to determine which carts they would be assigned to for transporting in the warehouse.  Gary was moving the carts full of product cases to the receiving area to be sorted for stowing.  On another half day this week, I was sticking identification labels on the cases loaded on pallets and then we opened the cases before they went on the conveyor belt.  The dock work is a different kind of physical labor for us, good but using new muscles again.  We do sleep well at night and find we need to go to bed earlier than we did at home.

Halloween day - workers at Amazon could wear costumes, if they conformed to the dress code - which is mostly directed to staying safe on the job.  No loose clothing that might get caught on bins, carts and conveyors.  A few did dress up, we saw a Richard Simmons, a pirate, and a couple of the CamperForce workers were dressed up as well, one as a clown and 4 of the girls wore black t-shirts with a big pink "P" on it and black makeup around one eye.   They were the "Black Eyed Peas".  

Saturday night after work we decided to get showered up and go out for supper, so that we would stay awake later - since we were going to get an extra hour of sleep with daylight savings time changing.  We went downtown to go to Lanning's again, but they were closed for a wedding reception.  So we walked around the corner to "Tavern on the Plaza".  They have live music there, this night it was a saxophone player, playing with recorded background music.  He was pretty good, but we were glad we were in the other room, he tried to play softly but that was difficult with a saxophone.

Sunday, Mass at 10:00 and then the annual church dinner and bazaar afterward. We went over to the school gym and had chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, a dinner roll and a piece of dessert, our choice from the homemade selections.  There were also booths with crafts and raffles. Quite an event for the parish.

Back home to watch the Chiefs game, another win, now 9-0!  I did some mending while watching the game. Gary worked on book work and watched the other games. Afterward I went for a walk over to nearby Leclere Park and got some pictures of the fall colors.  Back home, I finished the laundry loads and packed Gary's lunch for tomorrow.  We were offered an overtime day again tomorrow,  Monday will be our overtime days now.  Gary will work all day, I will work just a half day because I had a dentist appointment already scheduled at 2:00.  Gary will ride home with one of our fellow Camperforce friends that lives at Buckeye also.
This week all day shift work times change to report a half hour earlier, so now we will be 6:00 AM to 4:30 PM.

Along the street to the park

Leclere Park with walking trails

Looking across the park to the golf course on the hill

Above the park, colors on the hills on Nov. 3rd.
Some of the trees are already done.

A tree with just 2 branches of red color

...