Nashville to Graceland, part 3

“So hush little baby
Don’t you cry
You know your daddy’s bound to die
But all my trials Lord, will soon be over”
(An American Trilogy – Elvis Presley)

As part of your tour around the Graceland property, you’ll inevitably end up graveside just past the pool. There’s a well-manicured garden surrounding the final resting places of Vernon (father), Gladys (mother), Jessie (brother), and Elvis. This area is a somber, yet perfect way to end the tour. Check out photos below of my family and I passing by.

I also tried to take some photos in a less traditional way, so you’ll see the graves, but also a perspective from a bit farther away, including folks looking at the graves.

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Thanks for checking out my Graceland posts. If you want to see more, here’s part 1 and part 2.

-Out of the Wilderness

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