Ducks and Ribs in one day....

Wow!  Two posts in two days!  Not sure we can keep up this pace.

As we mentioned yesterday, our friends Fred and Vickie had left Memphis, and there were a couple of things we were going to do together.  Bob is anal about planning.  Connie just wants to know what time the bus is leaving.  She'll be on it.  Fred and Vickie are on the loose plan which works great for them.

One thing we've learned by coming to an area and staying for a month (or longer!) is it's so easy to say we're going to do this, this, and this.  Then put it off.  Until you're at the end of your time and you haven't done nearly what you'd like to.  For us, if we don't allocate a day to do this, a day to do that, we have found that we don't get things done.

So, looking at our last two weeks in Memphis, it was time to start allocating days to hit our targets.  One was the Ducks at the Peabody Hotel, and this morning was a great fit.  Pretty fascinating story you can read here.

We got to the Hotel at 10:25a for the 11:00a parade.  Very well heeled crowd.  Hotel "bouncers" were very good to say that there's no standing in the lobby and since they do it every day, twice a day, had the routine down.  We had great seats, everything was very calm until the last second.  Then it was bedlam.

5 minutes prior to the ducks,
and you'll notice the chair
to our left is empty.

5 minutes before it started, a woman took the chair to our left and asks if we can still see.  We could.  Then her husband/boyfriend, we'll call him "Dick" comes rolling in and kneels right in front of us with this huge, telephoto lens.  "Now, we can't."  He slid a little over towards Mrs. Dick.  We knew this guy was going to be trouble.  Sure enough, the elevator door opens, and "Dick" goes all paparazzi on the ducks in front of us and 'boom', it's over.  It was a little underwhelming.

You can see our video here.

The hotel itself was wonderful.  It's the essence of modernizing something while maintaining it's beauty of the time period.  The lobby phones were rotary dial, circa the 30's.  There was a piano built specifically for Francis Scott Key.  The ballrooms were terrific.  Beautifully preserved, but yet 2012 functional.


After the Peabody, we headed off to find Memphis' best ribs at Charles Vergos' Rendezvous.  It had a 2nd street address, but was basically in the alley behind 2nd street and the Holiday Inn that faced the Peabody.  They weren't 'open', which meant they weren't serving a full menu.  But, you could get a large or small order of ribs, baked beans and slaw (like we've never had!).  It was terrific, and probably had 10-15 tables full (with many of the people we saw over at the Peabody.)  Top 5 for rib places for us (Maybe Connie's #1).