Okay, it has now been over 2 ½ weeks since I updated last. It is getting harder and harder to keep up with this blog. I thought we would be less busy on our little adventure, but that has not turned out to be the case. Enough excuses, here goes!
After staying the weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, we spent April 12-19 in Des Moines, Iowa. Just like Nebraska, we found Iowa to be much different than we expected and absolutely beautiful. It was a great week spent getting to know Heidi’s husband & kids and Nathan’s wife, Pam. Dean & Heidi and Nathan & Pam were most hospitable. They gave Wayne a birthday party the day we got into town, and we were able to help celebrate Heidi’s youngest daughter, Chloe’s 2nd birthday. While in Des Moines, we even went to Adventureland in Des Moines to scope out a future summer work camping job.
We left Iowa on the 19th and made our way to our final destination for this season … Union, Illinois. We have been at the Chicago NW KOA now for almost two week. It is a great campground … lots of grass and trees. We worked a total of 10 hours last week and 10 hours this week to pay for our site. We start working in earnest on Sunday.
We have found two churches in the area where we feel comfortable worshipping. One is a Calvary Chapel and the other is a non-denominational church. This gives us options depending on our work schedule. We won’t have a set schedule for another two or three weeks.
So far Wayne has had a much more interesting time working than I have. He has mowed “miles” of grass, leveled sand in a playground, etc. Most of the time, I have been standing/sitting in the office, waiting for something to happen. The day just drags on and on … it will be different when the season really gets rolling, but right now … BORING!
We did take a trip into Chicago already. I have ordered spices from The Spice House online, and one of their stores is in Chicago. Alton Brown (Food Network) filmed one of his shows in this particular store, so I have been dying to see it. Anyway, the coolest thing is we got to see Lake Michigan. If you didn’t know better, you would swear you were standing at the ocean! We also now understand more about the “lake effect” you hear about on TV, and also why Chicago is called “The Windy City.” The wind coming off of the lake was cold!
Our newest news we have is about our next job. We were contacted by Amazon last week, and have now been hired to work in their fulfillment center in Campbellsville, Kentucky. This assignment will begin on October 17th, and will be finished on December 23rd. This will be a serious job with four 10-hour days per week. However, it is only 10 weeks, so we should be able to survive that. This job will help replenish our checking account. These past four months have been expensive, traveling around with no income. Our job here in Illinois will cover most of our basic expenses, but it won’t be enough to save any money. Amazon will help with that.
Last night, (April 30) we survived our very first tornado warning. It didn’t really even get all that nasty where we are. There was some amazing lightening and obviously thunder, but if truth be told, we experienced a much worse thunderstorm in Sanger, Texas back at the beginning of February. Not that I am complaining … I am perfectly happy this storm turned out to be relatively mild.
