Memphis, TN
Just before 11am each morning, a 50-foot red carpet is laid out, stretching from the hotel elevators to the marble fountain in the lobby. The Peabody Duck Master escorts the ducks from the Royal Duck Palace on the hotel's roof, to an elevator specially reserved for them. With all the pomp and circumstance of a royal event, the five Mallards, one drake and four hens, with their red-and-gold jacketed Duck Master, emerge from their elevator to the music of John Philip Sousa's King Cotton March.
They march on the red carpet, then mount three steps into the fountain, where they splash and preen for the day. At 5pm, the procedure reverses and the ducks creremoniously return to their penthouse palace.
