Saturday was the thirteenth annual Ducky Derby here in Castle Rock, organized by the local Rotary Club. You sponsor a duck by buying a ticket, and the first four hundred ducks to cross the finish line (or rather, enter the finish tube, as you'll see) win prizes donated by local businesses, as well as cash prizes. They close off a couple streets downtown and have a street fair, but then in the afternoon they launch the ducks--over eight thousand of them this year!--in Plum Creek, where they sail along for about a mile while everyone follows along on the bike or hiking paths.
The girls and I met my mom and her friend Ben, who was visiting from Oklahoma, and we checked out the fun. (Bev took a lot of the earlier pictures, so when she sends them to me I'll put them up.) We started at Dream Pastries for a mid-morning snack, which is the cafe that was adjacent to our favorite coffee shop that closed. Dream Pastries took over their space and expanded, and now it's a really cute little shop! We've already claimed the big round table in the back corner as ours. I foresee many mornings spent there as the girls get older, homeschooling or reading or playing or whatever.
From there we went down to the street fair, where the wind was making things a bit more interesting. There were wisps of cotton candy flying through the air, and when it got *really* gusty folks had to hang onto the frames of the EZ-Ups to keep them from blowing over. A shame, really, but folks here are used to it so it didn't put too much of a damper on things.
Big Duck, the aptly if not somewhat uncreatively named mascot of the Ducky Derby, was strolling around for photo ops. Abby of course wanted nothing to do with him and insisted we go in the opposite direction whenever we spotted him. PJ, on the other hand, insisted on seeing him because "I want to hug Ducky!" Though once we got there she changed her tune and said to me, "No, *you* hug Ducky." (cute photos coming)
There were businesses and crafty things set up, and also a collection of raptors. (really cool pictures coming!) Sort of an odd thing to have there, since one might consider birds of prey to not be the best ting around ducks, but I guess they're smart enough to tell the rubber ones from the real ones.
We went to lunch after a while at Siena, which I've been dying to try, and it was *really* good. (Great service, too.) After that we went back to the amphitheater to listen to the music for a while (PJ kept insisting on "more music!") and then I took the girls home so I could put PJ down for her nap. Once she was asleep, Abby and I went back for the REAL fun.
We were the first behind the duckmobile, which was bringing the vat o' duckies to the launch site. (There was another HUGE tub of ducks as well as what was inside that yellow box.)
Oh, the humanity! A little hard to tell in this photo, but the parade of people extends far, far into the distance. I'd love to know how many people came to the actual launch, because it was seriously packed. And I was so impressed with Abby--this was a long walk, and she traipsed along without a single complaint, even in the heat (close to 80!). Here is the whole route:
The street fair was at Perry Street and 2nd. Just below 2nd Street, to the west of Perry, you can see a little paved path--it goes under Wilcox, and then continues west to go under the freeway. the launch was under the freeway (yay for shade!), and the creek turns and flows north (yes, you read that right, it flows north) to the west of the walking path. We walked all the way up until the path takes a little jog to the left, crossing over the creek so that the path ends up to the west of the creek. That bridge over the creek was the finish line. Quite the trek for a 4-year-old!
When we got under the freeway for the launch, they took quite a while maneuvering the duckmobile to the edge of the creek.
But once they got it in position....
The little river of ducks really was pretty amazing. And then off we went to follow them!
Once Abby saw there was an off-road trail, she took it. For someone who doesn't like bugs and getting dirty, she sure was excited about walking through the grass and bushes. She kept wanting to go off the path, too, but with little patches of mini cacti around (and who knows what else) Mommy was a killjoy and said no. But in all honestly I'm looking forward to when she's a little older and more mature and I can let her wander around down there. Great goecaching spots, too!
Occasionally the ducks get caught up in some bend in the creek or in the branches of a fallen tree, so a bunch of teenaged boys follows the ducks along and hopped in to whack them back into the flow of the creek with lacrosse sticks.
And then, the finish line!
An orange plastic fence funnels the ducks into a trough that's only one duck wide. They put a big PVC pipe at the end and in the ducks go. They filled probably ten of these huge pipes, then loaded them back onto the duckmobile to be brought back to 2nd and Perry, where they recorded the first 150 winning numbers for everyone to see. Then they started shoveling the rest of the ducks into a big bin to be saved for next year.
There were some openings in that orange fence, however, so ducks kept escaping downcreek. A couple of tween-aged kids were in there to catch them, and Abby, in a rare show of daring and hutzpah, wanted to join them.
(This video is really long, but because I can't open it in iMovie I can't edit it. There's nothing that interesting past about the 2 minute mark, other than me trying to get Abby to come out, so feel free to move on before it finishes.)
It took a LOT of cajoling to get this child out of the water. And even then, she insisted on sitting on the edge of the path and dangling her feet in the creek while we watched them shovel ducks.
Only the knowledge that one of our numbers might be on the winner's board finally got her back into her shoes.
On the way back to town, she told me she wanted to do four things. (It started as two, but the list kept growing.) She wanted to look for our numbers and see if we won. She wanted to go back to the amphitheater and run and roll down the hill a few more times. She wanted to see the people in the costumes. (There was a prince, a princess, a jester, and two fairies there promoting the Renaissance Faire that takes place in Larkspur, the don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it town just south of Castle Rock. When we'd seen them before she was a little freaked out by them, but on the way back she said, "I'm not shy of the fairies or the jester anymore. But I still don't want to see the prince.") And she wanted a snack. That she had any energy left to think of doing anything but getting home really amazed me.
And once we got back, all her wishes came true. All the costumed people were walking together on their way out, right towards us, and the jester played all shy when he saw Abby and hid behind the princess. It was really cute. Then we hit the hill so she could do her thing, which exhausted me just watching her.
Running back up so she can roll...
Rolling for the first time (forgive the sideways videos; I can't get them to load in iMovie so I can't flip them):
...and then using Mama as a crash pad:
After that we checked out the winner's board...
...but we hadn't won anything so far, so after I convinced Abby that we would still get our prize if they put our number up after we left, we went back to Dream Pastries for cupcakes and a very big bottle of water.
She's been asking me all day when the next Ducky Derby will be. She had such a great time, and I really did too. This was just another of those small town traditions that makes me really love living here in Castle Rock. Quack!
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