Nashville to Graceland, part 2

“I came home with good intentions,
About 5 or 6 years ago…”
(Stranger in My Own Home Town – Elvis Presley)

This post might have the most pictures because, well, it’s the mansion!

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Our audio tour was set up for 1030am, Elvis time. We arrived around 915am so that gave us time to check out the museum across the street before the tour started. A future post will include so much of what there was to see in the museum, but today, it’s the home of Elvis – the Graceland mansion.

Check out the photos below and chime in with which of the rooms is your favorite.

iPads for each visitor, with audio tour narrated by John Stamos…

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My sister Shannon and I…

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The various rooms in the mansion…

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Narrow descending stairwell to the pool room and TV room in the Graceland mansion…

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Shag carpet on the wall…

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My awesome father checking out some of Elvis’ things…

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Tomorrow’s post will have photos of where Elvis and his family were laid to rest, just off to the left of the pool in the photo above.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Out of the Wilderness

Nashville to Graceland, part 1

“Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old things they are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland…”
(An American Trilogy – Elvis Presley)

Yes, the series of upcoming posts is about a family trip to Memphis, Tennessee to visit the famed home of the King of Rock n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, but it begins at my home. Well, actually it begins in Tallahassee, Florida because that’s where part of my family departed  when they saddled up to head north to Nashville, Tennessee. I could write a lot, I really could, but to save you some time…. I’ll sum up their 9 hr trip by saying this: they left Tallahassee and next, they arrived in Nashville… much to my joy and excitement! That was Thursday. Early Friday morning we packed up and headed west to Memphis. Take a look at the first part of our trip in these pictures…

Morning fog over a river… IMG_20191018_072031

My dad, the Captain, driving us to Memphis (mom and sister in the back seats sleeping)…
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Nearing Graceland…
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Even closer to Graceland than we were in the last picture…
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Entering the museum across the street from the Graceland mansion…
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Welcome to Graceland!
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Part of the intro video before shuttling over to the mansion… IMG_1913

Check back tomorrow for more from this spectacular family trip!
UDPATE: here’s part 2

-Out of the Wilderness

Disconnecting from the smartphone daily

Even before I started reading 12 Ways Your Smart Phone is Changing You*, I’ve had a strong desire to break the chains locking me to my cell phone. This is not as easy as it sounds, as you might guess. I use my phone for so much of my work, 2 sources of income are literally all app-based. So it’s a little tricky.

My plan lately is to have a certain time I shut my phone off, and then a certain time I power it back on in the morning. I guess most habits take time to develop, right? So this is turning into a marathon, not a sprint.

Original plan: off at 10pm, on at 8am

Is it working? Wellllllllllllll, some days it does, others, not so much. I’m still tweaking the routine but I’m determined to make this a priority for my daily life. I don’t want to be a slave to this device! It’s a fantastic tool for work, as I mentioned above about the jobs I have that are app-based, and can help keep in touch with people all over the world… but real life is happening all around me, not just in my small Nokia smartphone.

Do you have any methods of “disconnecting” that have worked for you? Chime in below and let me know!

*As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small commission for any purchases made through links in this post, at no additional cost to you*

-Out of the Wilderness

GEICO horror ad – “It’s what you do” is a killer commercial

I recently posted about the GEICO commercial “Flag Football with Jerome Bettis.” While that commercial is funny, it’s actually a terrible comparison… getting help from GEICO is “having Jerome Bettis on your flag football team easy,” while Jerome Bettis commits at least 5 penalty-worthy actions in one play.

Check out that post here.

But GEICO is known for having pretty hilarious commercials, so I thought I should point out one that’s been airing on and off for years. From what I could find, it was originally produced in 2015 and features a horror movie-like scene.


The tagline: “If you’re in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. It’s what you do.” It goes on to say if you want to save money on car insurance, switching to GEICO is “what you do.”

This spot is great because 1) it’s funny, 2) good acting and 3) it plays off of the stereotypes we all know from scary movies. The black person dies first. Someone goes off alone to do something… then dies. Everything happens at night. There’s usually one lone survivor. On and on the cliche’s go. If you want to see more of these stereotypes, just watch Scream 1, Scream 2, or Scream 3. Or Scary Movie, I suppose. Check out this article on who the actresses are in this ad.

The comparison of ‘this is what you do if you’re in a horror movie’ to ‘this is what you do if you want to save money on car insurance’ is easy to understand, and while the Jerome Bettis commercial misses the mark because it’s an inaccurate illustration, this horror ad hits it right on the head. Or should I say, slashes it?

-Out of the Wilderness

12-year climate change timeline is a win/win for Democrats

Leaving science and everything that makes sense out of this, the 12-year deadline for the end of the world is the best thing Democrats could have ever come up with. Why? Well, I haven’t heard anyone say this yet, maybe they have and I’m just unaware, but here’s why the Democrats are putting most of their eggs in this climate change timeframe…

It’ll be the year 2030 when the so-called climate change timetable is at it’s end point. At this point, either the world ends, as suggested by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or it doesn’t. And here’s where it gets good for the Democrats…

Scenario 1 – the world ends

Democrats announce the ultimate “I told you so!”

Scenario 2 – the world doesn’t end

In this case (and what I think the Democrats will do since the world isn’t going to end in 2030, at least not because of global warming), the Democrats will say, “We did it! Thanks to all your hard work and the amazing vision and leadership of the Democrat party, we’ve avoided disaster. Now, you should trust us with your vote, your money, and your future!” They’ll use this heroic act of saving the world to push their party forward and ask for everyone to join in with the party of the future. They’ll say, “Republicans and conservatives would have brought the world to an end, but thank goodness the Democrats did something about it!”

The ironic part is this: even if no one did anything environmentally responsible from today till January 1st, 2030, the world wouldn’t end. The Democrats know this, so no matter how much effort is or isn’t put into “saving the world,” they’re going to take credit because of what’s going on now– the party-wide push to fix global warming. In 2030, they’ll say it was all thanks to them.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think they have a 12-year plan to set themselves up as the saviors of the earth? Comment below!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

-Out of the Wilderness