Each day at 11:00am, the elevator doors open and five Mallard ducks (one male, four females) march out of the elevator, across a red carpet placed just for them and up three steps into the fountain in the middle of the Peabody lobby. They are accompanied by the official Peabody Hotel DuckMaster and march to a Sousa march. At 5:00pm, the procedure is reversed; the ducks march out of the fountain, into the elevator and back to their "Duck Palace" atop the Peabody.
I'm not kidding about this; check out their website.
We arranged for Larry, our cab driver from last night, to pick us up at the hotel and drop us off at the Peabody before 11:00am. We wandered around the very elegant lobby and shops and chose a good spot to witness the March of the Ducks. Here's the lobby pool:
At the appointed hour the DuckMaster appointed a pair of "Honorary DuckMasters":
People shouldered each other out of the way in order to improve their pathetic photos; it was a real "cluster-duck".
I was born and raised in Little Rock, just two hours west of Memphis by car. In September 1933, my dad proposed to my mom on the roof of the Peabody. I found a good spot, told our friends the story, knelt and asked Gael to marry me (again):
Here's the view from the roof looking West toward the Mississippi River:
We opted for the "Elvis Entourage" VIP package which, though it costs $55/person, ensures "no line" handling all day long. Though pricey, it was absolutely the right choice:
Across the street is another collection of attractions and the ticket plaza. After buying our six VIP tickets, we visited, in this order:
Photos are permitted everywhere, but no sound or video recorders and no flash. Much of the lighting is too poor for good non-flash photos but we did our best.
Rather than put all the photos in-line, click HERE for pictures at Graceland (the mansion) itself, HERE for pictures in Elvis' auto museum and airplanes.
While it was our driver Larry who dropped us at Graceland, our hotel provides a free shuttle back to the hotel so we took advantage of that at about 4:30p. We rested up a bit and then decided to go to Marlowe's for barbecue. Yes, we had barbecue last night BUT when in Memphis...
Marlowe's has a fleet of pink Cadillac limos that will pick you up at your hotel and take you back:
At Marlowe's:
When Mike seated us, he was wearing a Corvette ballcap:
Dessert is worth mentioning; they were all delicious but the "Hunka Hunka Apple Pie" (a la mode, of course) is NOT to be missed!
