Amazing Amazon trip

Eric and I went to Chattanooga today for a field trip at the Amazon Fulfillment Center.  We order so much from them, I thought it was about the coolest thing ever.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures.  They would not allow any pictures inside the center.

We felt like we were in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  Have to keep it a secret.  

That place was awesome.  And ginormous.  There were conveyor belts everywhere just constantly moving with packages and yellow tubs of items to be shipped.  Our tour guide wore a microphone, and we each had headphones so that we could hear her.  That was neat.  I also thought it was interesting that they have random stow.  The items are scanned when they come in and then placed in the next available place.  There were rows and rows of shelves filled with rows and rows of cubby type things.  Each cubby had a bar code and a letter and number assigned to it.  In the cubbies would just be random items - a board game, hair gel, a soccer ball, and toilet bowl cleaner.  It was so completely random.  But, the pickers would have a list of what to pull from each cubby.  They would put those in tubs and onto the conveyor belts where they would be sorted by order.  It was so fun to watch.  They let the kids practice packing with an empty box and then let them keep it.  Packing was interesting.  You fold the box, then push a button and out pops a piece of tape (which is wet.  it is water based, so it is not sticky.  That was fascinating to me too).  You then fold the top, push the button again, and out pops your next piece of tape.  Then you put a label on the box, and you are done.  Very cool!!!!

Here is Eric outside the Fulfillment Center holding his box. 

This was one of my favorite field trips ever!!!!  Eric and I both want to work here.  Such a cool place.  And we love us some Amazon!  (even if we do have to pay taxes on it now)

There were a couple of geocaches nearby, so we decided to do those as well.  Here was an old bunker from WWII.  I had to get a couple of silly pictures first.  This boy loves to be silly.  

The bunker was especially fascinating to Eric because we just watched The Book Thief this week.  Very good movie, although the ending was a bit :( 

He was very interested to see a real bunker after seeing the movie.  Just wish we could have gone inside.  There was one geocache here and one a quarter of a mile up the road.  Eric is becoming quite the super spotter and found both of them.