The best part of my trip to Memphis, Tennessee last week wasn’t the barbecue, the famed Bass Pro Shop pyramid, the museums, or the live music down Beale Street — it was the ducks.
Five residents of the historic Peabody Hotel’s “duck palace” were escorted by the hotel’s “Duckmaster” — a guy named Doug clad in a red jacket during our trip — from the roof of the century-old hotel past my room on the seventh floor, down a red carpet walkway in the lobby, where they swam and played all day long in one of the ornate fountains.
The hotel performs the duck walk ceremony twice per day, at 11 a.m. to bring the ducks to the lobby and at 5 p.m., to bring the ducks home to their palace on the roof.
The lobby was packed to the brim with onlookers during the evening march. Doug shared the history of the ducks and the duck march and then, as if on cue, the ducks emerged from the marble fountain one by one and made their way towards us.
Of course, we also had a fantastic time eating barbecue, visiting the alligators at the Bass Pro Shop in the Memphis Pyramid (the tenth-tallest pyramid in the world!), eating barbecue, spending hours in the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, and eating barbecue.
But the things that will bring me back to Memphis are the five Peabody Ducks.
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