Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now Just like that, we are back with another episode. of Elevate with Elsner. This is the Key Largo edition. We thought we might as well come live to you. Just give you a little recap because Key Largo and St. Louis are very similar in terms of, you know, the outcome of your night, right? You just, you end up in very similar places next to, I mean, I would say water that's similar color. to the St. Louis River, right? So we have the St. Louis River. You got beautiful. Anyway, let's start from the top. Where should we start, Rusk? That's a great question. You just go start on Thursday. Actually, how about Thursday? My That was good. 40 minutes through, you know, security in about five minutes. And yeah, it was delayed. So, you know, Southwest is like, well, what should we do for this guy? Because there's nobody else flying. So clearly he's our number one passenger. So what they did was they booked me on a flight that was earlier and I go, wow. And they took me to Nashville where they take me Nashville. And then they put me on an even earlier flight into Miami and then proceeded to give me a hundred dollar voucher. How I didn't even ask for it. They should give you a hundred dollar voucher every time you step on a Southwest flight just for even Yeah, this is it's upsetting how Southwest is really just trash. Yeah, really, really triggers you. That's for sure. Um, now that American airlines has tequila, he'll never be back to Southwest ever. They hurt. They, they finally listened to the last podcast episode when he flew into St. Louis, angry as can be. It actually wasn't that bad. That flight wasn't that bad, but. And but they listen to you. You're like American take notes. We need tequila. And I mean, not even a week later, they have tequila on the birds. Well, that's what happens when the rusk speaks. It's true. So anyway, so Thursday, get in, stay at the a loft. You know, he didn't want to wake up the old man at his, uh, at his place. Cause I came in early and we were all over the place. So that's right. I stayed up. I stayed up. Yeah. He's got, got a beautiful place there in, uh, Coral Gables, Coral Gables, Homa, Homa, Coral Gables title. And, uh, Yeah. And so he's down there and he's got a beautiful view overlooks a, uh, I think it's a shell and a good year Chevron Chevron Chevron and a good year. Got a pretty cool swing out there on a nice patio furniture. Apparently you can see fireworks in the distance. Um, I didn't see any, but I don't think it was a, it wasn't a holiday. It was just a Thursday. So this beautiful place, he's got two bedrooms, got two full bass. He's got a studio. I mean, you're looking at it now and actually what we're talking about studios, it's probably one of the last times right here, Bill, um, that you're going to see this studios. We're, we're going to be building a new studio, new location, finally get out of mom's basement and, uh, build ourselves a, a new studio with the help of your, uh, expertise. You're, I think people forget that you build studios too. I want no part of that. Well, you can hold the hammer. That's So anyway, let's go to Home Depot. You can buy a hammer. You can come home and you can beat yourself in the head with it, or you can Yeah. I've been staying away from Home Depots and Lowe's and they just seem like a lot of criminal acts. You're replacing the floors in your basement there, Bill, or will you be doing all No, lovely. Key carpet, key carpet and flooring. Awesome. Awesome company. They're going to come in here and tear out the carpet and put a nice floor down. And the studio is going to be now relocated. To, uh, our other office in Kirkwood. So we're going to be, uh, it'd be right there in downtown Clarksville. Blank slate. Yeah. Right, right next to ice and fuel. Basically we got two offices. Bill member. So the other office we're going to turn into a little studio and it's about a corner corner of the office. We're going to turn into a studio. Um, so it might take a little bit to get back live again, but I'm going to miss this. This is kind of where everything, everything started behind me here. You know, at one point I think I had a Jersey hanging by a, uh, like a, uh, just a hanger and it was me and that was it. So a long way, Bill. Now it definitely looks like fibromyalgia closet over there. Yeah, I just can never please this guy. So anyway, um, Friday, Friday we wake up, we're like, all right, we're off to Key Largo. Um, I had never, I'd never been. Actually to Miami, that was the first time I've been to Miami sin. You're like, we're headed South, but first I'll tell you what, when we finally got in your power wheels and we headed South, that waffle house that you stopped at. Woo. I mean, I, I don't even breakfast, much less waffle house. I mean, but that was the cleanest waffle house, the best service, the best food. I've never seen a waffle house like Well, I mean, I was surprised you were hungry because you had Budweiser for breakfast prior Yeah, that was just, you know, they call that a protein shake to kind of get you going. Right. That, that, that lovely, uh, wildflowers meal we got back in that power wheels and we were off, we were off. I'm a little concerned about the drive because going 45 miles an hour on like a four lane highway, just as a little confusing to a lot of police officers taking radar into into the keys. Um, can't speed notice that, right? Well, you forgot your flip flops too. Oh yeah. I forgot my flip flops. I know that's what happens when you, you know, you got, you're trying to get out of the house. You got kids, you got, you know, there's really no excuses. You got shoes. Um, but luckily we were right across from Walgreens anyway. So, Anyway, so we'll continue our drive about an hour and a half down there. Lovely drive. You know, I'll tell you what, there's a lot. It was about an hour and 15 minutes, bill hour and 15, a lot of protected land. Um, beautiful place really is. So I, you know, he's like, we're headed the Bay side in and I'm like, all right, you know, it's exciting. Um, you know, right on the water. He said we were on the Atlantic side, but until the last day, I think he realized we were on the Gulf side, but that's for, that's for another day. I failed geography bill. Yeah. Also failed astrology. But what's your sign bill? Uh, I'm a cancer. Mine's dollar. Mm. Uh, guys. So anyway, anyway, so we're, we thought about, uh, hanging a left at the fork down ocean reef to go see, uh, your boy Rich, but, uh, they didn't let us in because, uh, they just looked at us like you guys are not allowed in the ocean reef We were allowed in the following day for dinner, but, um, Roscoe's too nervous to go. So according to Rich, I totally screwed you. Cause you could have been hanging at the reef instead of Yeah, I gotta say, I mean, for, for, for a hotel where the door is on the exterior, it's probably one of the nicest ones. I mean, it's rare that you see a nice hotel with an exterior door like that. You know, there's, those usually are red roof ends and, um, but when you got like these older style motels down there, it, It's something like they can kind of get away with the, you know, motel-y feel, right? Yeah, it was definitely a motel-y feel. We had a Burger King in the parking lot too. Yeah, that Burger King. I mean, you could throw a rock and hit it. I mean, that Burger King is close. And so luckily, yeah, like you said, I forgot my sandals, went to Walgreens. I know you Frank, yeah, you were a frequent flyer of that Walgreens. Um, between your your medicines and, you know, eyedrops and roll hard for him, Bill. And then he got cut. That was a whole nother. I mean, oh, yeah, with the bushes, you're careful run through the bushes after too many birds. Yeah. So I never realized how many. With those turkeys, chickens, those things, those would be chickens, you kept calling turkeys, they don't even look like turkeys. They they sound like turkeys. They're kind of they don't they go cock. Yeah, the first time I didn't even, I'm just walking there and enjoying, enjoying the water. One of those things just has to just belt out whatever it says. And I about jumped four feet because it was in the, it was in the bush. Like they don't just, they kind of blend in, you know, they, you don't really see them till they make the noise. And then you hear a little something scattered. They don't have chickens in St. Louis? Well, they do. They're just in like, cages, I think, you know, they're, they're confined. They're not just, you know, walking down the street, you know, walking their Yeah. Did we see an Iguana? No, I don't think we saw an Iguana. What else did we see? They're a, they're a nuisance down here. But yeah, anyway, the Bayside Inn, if you're going to go to Key Largo, which I didn't realize how many keys there were. I mean, you know, people are like, I always thought it was just Key West. You're like, Oh, you go to Miami and then you just, it's Key Wasteland and then Key West lot. Yeah, well, it is. So the people that are wealthy don't take their power wheels. They either take a boat and they kind of cruise on from Miami, and it looks like they come on down. Takes them about an hour in a boat. Some people fly. You keep calling my electric car power wheels. Well, yeah, I mean, it's I mean, it's very similar. They charge the same power Yeah. Miss Miss Rachel's. She's I don't even know who she is. She's wealthy. Miss Rachel is very wealthy and every parent out there knows Miss Rachel. But actually there's a new Miss Rachel. It's kind of like Blippi. I don't know. I think the original Miss Rachel and the original Blippi, they both got canceled, I think. And now they had to replace them with figures that look like them, but the parents are like, we know that those aren't the real ones. I don't know. I, yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. That's a question we It says she is on Netflix. She's got her couple of seasons on Netflix. You too. I mean, I've seen her in only fans too. Yeah, she, I think that was the previous one probably, and that's probably why she's no longer on there. Um, but anyway, so back to Key Largo, Key Largo, you know, I never knew that song, you know, they say Key Largo, is that a Jimmy Buffett song? Uh, Well, Jimmy Buffett has many a songs about the Florida Keys. Um, you know, and Key Largo that he kept singing. Yeah, that was, uh, Here's Something about bogey and McCall, but yeah, something. We did not play golf. Um, no golf, no bogeys, but I got to say that baseline. Yeah. Yeah. Thousand one that Bayside in right next to snooks, which is like a little restaurant right on the water. No room. It's, It reminds me of like a little resort. I mean, it's the closest thing you can get to being out of the country while you're still in the beautiful United States of America. Then we got them sunsets every night. Oh, and those sunsets. Yeah, I don't I mean, I guess that's what happens when you're you know, you're at such a low, low lying area and you're seeing the sun basically just drop off the equator. There was it was great. And I had a few people in my way. Oh, that's that's right. Yeah, that's right. Don't get in front of Rusk his way in front of the sunset, because he'll tell you to move over, sir. You were in my way. And I'll tell you what. Russ makes They they sat down and they started blocking my perfect view. Some kid came to join his parents like teenager and he sat down right in front of me. So I didn't say anything. But I made it very obvious by grunting and moving my chair very aggressively that I was not pleased. Yeah. Blockage of Yeah. And they, they've, he realized it very quickly and moved for you. Um, and then you were back, you're, you're good again. You're happy and. The sunset, we didn't see a drop of rain. We rarely saw a cloud. Yeah. You lucked out, dude. That was, yeah, that was, that was a, I mean, that was, that sunset was, I mean like no other sunset you'll see. That's for sure. The best. That is the best. But yeah, the pool was a little warm. That was one thing that really wasn't a place to cool off. It was hot water. Ocean's about 90 pools, about 95. Um, You know, Rusk is like, why don't you knock off 50 off the tab for the warm water there? And, you know, the shower didn't really work. Then they. Well, they didn't need a new shower head. Yeah. And then then it felt like we were getting stung by wasps. The shower pressure went from none to. I mean, like like you were literally getting stung by bees, it was the shower pressure was so strong. Yeah. You're like, well, you couldn't even stand in it, but. You know, that's another, another thing. Um, gotta say, uh, I was actually a little impressed. I'm sure, sure. You could do it pretty big down there. Um, not really, you know, the keys is, uh, the idea is just to, well, we did, I'm saying the, I was going Oh yeah. Let's talk about that stupid. Tiki, but you Oh, yeah. So I'm like, OK, I got to go out on the water, right? You can't you can't not go to Key Largo and go, oh, I'm just going to stare at the water. I mean, you got to you got to get out there, right? Yeah. You want to go out there on this floating tiki bar that had like a 50. What's the horsepower? A little little trolling motor. Well, yeah, a little trolling motor with some drunk captain that wishes he could actually captain a real boat. They call them captains. Oh, they're like, I'll call the captain. I'm like, I think you mean the Tiki boat operator. Yeah. So yeah, $75 to go on this rinky dink scam. And, uh, it's the middle of the day. It's 9 million degrees. No booze is included, nothing at all. So I kindly declined. And then the next day, uh, there's a glass bottom boat, 65 bucks with a bar. It takes you out into open water. And you could see the water in the keys, which is one of a kind. We did that Yeah, I was only like 59. And then how about that deal? I was like, you get a service tumbler and two drinks for 25 bucks. That's my new favorite cup. And he says, if any of you have been to Miami, you know that two drinks for $25 and a cup is a deal. And we signed sealed and. enjoyed our, uh, two cold ones. He's still got his favorite cup. I still got our, still got that cup somewhere around here. I'm sure. Um, service Tumblr service. Yeah, that was nice. Yeah. But yeah, no, that was a great time. Some people, uh, started to get a little seasick and wanted some drama mean. And then she ordered a pina colada after she, and then we found a, uh, Speak easy. That's right. Speak easy. Uh, that's right. The dude at Snooks goes, go onto this Instagram and you find this little speakeasy and the little code is in the Instagram and That was a great cocktail too. And I mean, we needed to, at that point we definitely needed another cocktail, but yeah, we needed some And so this guy orders the garb. I mean, who eats raw beef? Nobody. And you're like, uh, you know, you sit down with the guy that always has to order the car Bosch and you're like, ah, man, like, come on. Like we don't need to eat raw beef here. Let's not take a risk. We're next to the land. How, you know, I mean, right next to water, not even close to land. But we're going to order the beef. We're going to order the beef. Was it not good? I mean, I guess it just doesn't taste like anything. Tastes like cold, slimy. You're so uncultured. This guy eats egg rolls from gas stations. Okay. Yeah. Seriously. He goes there on purpose, goes up there to BT's. Yeah. It's a quick trip. Yeah. Quick trip. He walks out. He walked out. I was there visiting St. Louis. Guy walks out with two. It must've been a deal. Buy one egg roll, get one for 50 cents. gets in, he's like chewing half the thing, smells like Panda Express. Oh, God, it was terrible. I Yeah, that's one thing you gotta, you have a weak stomach. That's one thing I found out. So who eats a roll from a gas station? That's like eating sushi at a strip club. Wow. That is a heck of a comparison. I love quick trip. They got rollers. They got, you know, as long as you don't get one of the rollers that's been rolling for a while. You kind of got to feel them with the tongs to make sure they haven't been sitting there else. You kind of get burned Same thing with hot dogs over at, uh, at seven You got to kind of got to look at them. Seven 11 does have a damn good hot dog though. I will say I used to always get seven 11 hot dogs. That was kind of first place I ever had to relish. They were always, they're always big Well, there's that when, you know, especially when all the flies right around Oh, yeah. It's kind of like a subway cold table. Oh, subway. There you go. So. So Friday, after the boat, speakeasy, cool place. That guy, uh, We're going to get to that, how you sleep in shifts, but that's not only, not only do I sleep in shifts, I almost like common courtesy. You're sharing a hotel room with somebody, you know, tiptoe around, you know, wake up, get some water, If I'm not sleeping, you're not sleeping. So every light comes on, every noise gets turned on, every zipper gets opened in the bag, everything you could possibly do in the middle of the night, this guy shifts of every two hours, he's up, taking a roll, taking a, you know, you know, shaving his ears. I mean, the guy turns on this light. Then he walks across the room, turns on the other light. Then he's like, turns down the air. Then he turns up there. And the guy, he's just he's all over the place. I mean, you would have thought he had ants in his pants. He couldn't sit still. I was about to tie him down to the bed. I'm like, I might as well have a baby that I'm nursing and waking up to feed every two hours at this point because I'm Yeah, you did, too. You were doing real good on on, uh, on Yeah, that's. And then, then you have mouth tape and tell you what, you watch somebody put mouth tape on, they go to bed with mouth tape. You're like, what the hell is this guy? How am I, how am I going to communicate to the guy? He can't talk. He's got tape over his mouth. And then he wakes up and he's like, where's the, where's the tape on my mouth? Like, well, Bill, you probably took it off in the middle of the night and didn't even realize it. It's one of those things, the Hannibal Lecter. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. You know, I guess that's what happens with, you know, you get a little older, right, Bill Rusk, and. You get tape mouth tape, you got it, and then you start taping your ankles, I will listen, you know, sleep apnea is real. I don't want to die in my sleep because I'm breathing wrong. I used to grind my teeth. So I had a buddy of mine tip me off and say, hey, man, I, uh, have a, I, I heard of this hostage tape. I was like, wow. Um, so I tried it and I stopped grinding my teeth. I stopped snoring and I sleep better because you're supposed to breathe out of your nose and you stop breathing completely. And ever since then, um, I've called it hostage tape. How? Yep. But I found some kind of knockoff of They just call that scotch tape is what they call duct tape. I mean, it rips the skin off my lips, but, you Yeah, I can't wait. I just had to get up and use the bathroom. And then I just decided that it was I could not stop laughing as I was approaching the light to turn it on. And when I went to the other one, it was like that was another thing. It's just like nonstop, full blown laughter. Yeah, it's not just the light either. It's the I mean the the noise of the switch like you can't flip on the light with any more noise like the light itself sprite but like the sound of you just flipping that everyone and then you flip it off and then you'd run over to the other one. It's like, I was like a five-year-old. I'm still here. Right. I'm still here. Yeah. I'm still here. Every two hours. You got to just make sure is Russell here. He's still here. Yep. How are your bets doing these days? I don't bet anymore. That's, that's a, that's a sore subject. We don't, don't bet on sports betting on sports. It's just a bad, bad news. Unless you, you know, you put like 20 bucks on it. Right. That's fun. Oh, 1425 on guys. Guys never met an No, it's always under until it's over. And he doesn't listen. Yeah, because I WNBA, you do take WNBA unders. I don't know why, but apparently they're locks, I guess. So, um, anyway, so after the, after the, uh, we got back, you know, your bedtime is usually about nine 30, 10 30, 30. Yeah. I'm sitting there. I'm like seven 30 central time. Wide awake. You were on, you were on central time all week. Yeah. I never left central time. That's kind of how I do it. Um, why would I ever switch time zones? Well, because you're in a different time zone. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense for a short amount of time. and whatnot. I can imagine you in Europe. Yeah. Well, it's noon. Well, I love, you know, maybe if I, before kids, I would have loved to go on over to Europe. Maybe. I don't know. I just don't have a desire. I just don't have a desire to go over there. I don't know. Maybe it's because I have everything I need here to be like, that's kind of ignorant, right? Uncultured pig. Like, well, no, but I just, I just don't feel like it. Like I don't, I don't think I need to go to Italy and eat rainwater. I, you know, nobody, everyone goes over to Italy and the people that tell you, like, they're like, it's, you know, it's hot. Food's really not that great. Like, but like, nobody's going to go over to Italy and be like, yeah, that's how it really was. They're going to come out and be like, we loved it. We loved it. We got to go back. Nobody's going to say I sat on an airplane for that long and hated it. Of course you're going to make your, you're going to talk yourself into it. You got to fly business class bill. Well, Oh yeah. The Hey, I don't think Southwest goes to London though. I don't think Southwest has a, uh, Greenland actually, and refuel on the way. Do they do international flights Uh, I think they're trying to add some, right. They go to like, I think they do Mexico. Yeah. They go to, they go to Mexico. They go to some of those islands. Right. Yeah, but other than that, the beautiful Southwest airlines. Yeah, they're struggling, I guess. Their stock price really struggles too. So does American Airlines. Look at American Airlines stock price. They're struggling. I don't understand the I love people who have flight delays. He sent me Dave Carroll's post yesterday. Never in my life will I ever fly American? I'll fly spirit and said, that's only said in complete rage of the moment. Okay. Cause those are just like, that's the worst idea ever. Dave, I can assure you, if you're listening to this, you will in fact fly American Yeah. That's a, it's kind of like when you're, when I was flying spirit and I'm like, I will never fly spirit again. And then you There's where you're going to like people say that like, like spirit gives a fuck like they don't. They just don't. It's like I'll show You want to, you want to go to your destination or not? I I did Southwest is the worst. I can know that that's about as savage as I can get. That's the most travel raw dogging I'm willing to do that. And. That's Oh, yeah, this guy's got Wi-Fi and and gets fed meals on American Airlines. But that Admiral Club you're in the other day or yesterday, I was pretty packed people. It's how people travel. It's a little first class travel with an airport lounge. It's I know Southwest, you're not really accustomed to that. Just neither of those options How about that? Well, You know, so it's a beautiful time down in Key Largo. I gotta say I. Love the return. Maybe Maybe we're going back in October. Going to Key West this time though going That's apparently where. We're all like the fun is tell you what there. Beautiful islands. What else did we do? I don't, you know, I think that was really it. I think we ate every meal at Snook's almost too. Great, great place right next door. I mean, so you walk through these little bushes, right? And where the little chickens are. And so we're headed to dinner that last night at Snook's and all of a sudden Russ goes down. I'm like, what, what happened? Did one of those chickens attack him like in the bush while we were cutting through? No, it was a, it Yeah. It nabbed me and one of my moles and started bleeding So next thing I know, I'm just sitting there at dinner and Mike, where is Russ cat? He was frequenting the, uh, Walgreens back at Walgreens, back at Walgreens, had to pass the burger King to get to Walgreens. And, uh, I can't believe we ever went and got a, we didn't get a drunk whopper. That's odd. Well, that's because those one kids came over and they're like, that was the worst decision ever was to eat at that. Oh They sat at the bar and they were like, how's the food here? I was like, great. He's like, good. Cause we just ate at Burger King and that was a terrible idea. Yeah. That they were like, which I can't imagine. I mean, I'm sure you open that wrapper on one of those whoppers. It's probably, I mean, there's probably every ingredient all over that wrapper. The bond is halfway sliding off. I mean, I can't imagine it's probably. just a Yeah. But yes, we're going to do it again in October. Do it again in October when it starts snowing in Yeah, I think I think that's a good. Good, uh, good plan. So then we, uh, I think we woke up Sunday and my flight was like 1130. You're like, let's, you know, have a Sunday and, you know, hang out. And then you're like, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get back. I, you know, I gotta get in the sauna. I gotta, I gotta get in the pool. I gotta go. You need to get back. The wife was starting school. I was just trying to We were squirming a little bit or, you know, I'm like, I can only sleep Oh, yeah. Well, we were supposed to come back to Miami and do like a Sunday and But yeah, that was clearly when we woke up Sunday, I was not. Oh, you weren't doing good. Not doing good. And then you're like, we got to charge my power wheels on the way back. Talk about a nightmare. I mean, charging your power wheels on the way home. I mean, you got to find a Publix and we pull right next to this little VW bus, cool bus, never pay $75,000 for it. But you know, that's somebody's opinion. And so we, first we Um, yeah, because it's a weird note. You Like, I don't know what degen, uh, design these things, but yeah. So finally we find one and he plugs it in and like, we're not, we're not moving bill. We're not, we're not charging here. So So then we moved to like a different one. Cause I think we thought it might not work because the other Tesla like moved. Cause his power wheels wasn't charging either. So then he moved to a different one. So then you moved to a different one. Finally, we got it plugged in and you're like, all right, here we go. And you know, those power wheels, people are like, Oh, it's like five minutes. Estimated time of completion, like 32 minutes. You're like 32 minutes. Like the guy went in and did grocery shopping while his car was charging. You enjoy, you enjoy your gas. It'll be done. I'll tell you what, it does ride nice. I don't like sitting in there while it's charging though. Cause your feet vibrate. It's kind of odd. So I definitely wouldn't the radiation. I'm sure it's not great to sit inside of a. electric car while it charges. But, you know, I guess we'll, we'll find that out later in life when the science comes out, but it vibrates your feet, but it's got like the little loading bar. It's pretty neat, I guess, you know, and then we're off rides smooth as butter. That's for sure. Um, quiet, real quiet car. I, I do say it is a nice, what is it revving that car? You're not revving that bad boy up, not revving it, but man, it's fast. That thing. Real fast. Yeah. Yeah. Real Yeah. You dropped me off at the airport and, uh, that was pretty much it. And we, uh, terminal G terminal G and I said, yeah, man, there's a lot of, it took about 40 minutes in that security line to get through it. Oh, Southwest. You're Yeah. Why is that? So it's a beautiful place. Cheer So, all right. Well, until next time, right, bill, that's right. That's right. A little, another, uh, another, another Ruskin Elsner adventure here. We're just elevating another Ruskin Elsner adventure. We're live on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. How about that bill? How about that? You know, I don't even know if it went by going, who is bill? Yeah. I don't even know if it went live on, uh, palm trees podcast. All right. Until next time. Another episode. Elevate with Elsner. Elevate with Elsner. That's a mouthful. Last time you're going to see the studio, too, probably because people are devastated. They're devastated. We're going to have to take some of this over to Driver's Ed at 33. Oh, yeah. I forgot about Driver's Ed. That took about four and a half hours. Sat in that class. Don't speed in Mississippi. It's Alabama. Get it right, pal. Same thing. All right. All right, Bill. See you, Bill. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your