Destination v. Journey, Part III

Who wants to see some ducks come out of an elevator, march across a red carpet, hop into a fountain and swim around? You'd be surprised. Well, you might not be surprised that my kids wanted to see that, but you would be surprised that about 200 or so people show up to see it every day at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis:



And they're just regular old ducks raised on some dude's farm. They're not even hooded mergansers.

Regardless, I remember being very excited about seeing the ducks "march" when I was a child and visited Memphis. My own kids were no different. They thought those ducks were fanfreakingtastic. And after we watched them waddle out of the elevator and down the red carpet, we went up to the roof to see where they live when they're not paddling around the fountain. Their digs used to be really cool, with wrought iron fancy cages. Now, the ducks live in air-conditioned comfort inside a glass room with a pool for swimming and a nesting box. I was so disappointed the cool wrought iron cages were gone that I didn't deem the new ducky abode worthy of a photo.

But we found some other things on the roof worthy of photos:



We found these kids getting ready to jump off the roof. Where is their mother?

Oh. Oops! Wait a sec', those are mine.

We also took a family photo minus daddy:



And the only reason I feel compelled to post it here is because of that look on Mace's face. He had only 2 minutes before tripped over my foot and landed forehead first on the concrete. He was very unhappy with me (since it was my fault, after all) but at the same time he was compelled to come to me for comfort -- it was a tough moment for him. Comfort won out, but only barely.

Nanny and Nette bought Mace a toy duck in the gift shop. Nette discovered, only on the way out of the store (so she says!) that the duck quacked. Three times in a row. Loud enough to hear across the Mississippi in Arkansas. Don't believe me?



Funny, I'm not sure that duck actually made it back to Tampa. It may have gotten "lost" in one of the camper cushions on the way home. Poor wittle wost ducky.

Moving on. We took Casey to see the Mississippi River because we had told him that it was a mile wide and he just had to see a river that was a mile wide. So we get there and he is singularly unimpressed. I realized that it was because he thought a mile was much longer than it really is -- I forget that he's six sometimes (and can you blame me, the boy reads words like "outrageous" the very first time he sees them!).



Those three grown-ups there in that photo decided that Casey had not been in enough states in 2 days (FL, GA, AL, MS, TN), so while PopPop and I took Mace back to the camper for a nap, those three took Casey over the bridge to Arkansas. On their way back to the camper, they stopped off by a cotton field and let Casey pick some cotton. Casey came back with a beautiful cotton boll that he took to show his classmates this week.

And try as I might, I cannot seem to work in the phrase, "Hey, now, you just wait a cotton pickin' minute!" into this blog post, so I decided to stick it awkardly onto the end where it has no purpose whatsoever.