Ducky Derby and notes

This past Saturday my daughter, Amberle, and I attended and participated in the 2009 Western Carolina Ducky Derby in Asheville, NC.

This was a benefit event for Western Carolina Rescue Ministries for food, shelter, clothing and hope. Over 5,600 small yellow rubber duckies were adopted with plans to float/race them down the French Broad River–awarding prizes to the top eight finishers.

However, rains had raised the river water level to the point where it was no longer safe. Someone came up with a rather ingenious contraption using a cement mixer truck and attached long water trough to provide random selection of ducks with some sense of floating “downstream.”

It was a worthwhile event but personally I was disappointment not getting to see and photograph over 5,000 bright yellow rubber ducks floating down the river–perhaps next year. :-)

As a side note, the first two photos are of a “duck” and a baby, and a woman and dogs interacting. Would you say that these interactions were expressing ‘hello’ or perhaps ‘goodbye?’ Captured in the moment without other clues hellos and goodbyes often appear the same. If you don’t believe it go to an airport and watch as people arrive and depart with loved ones or friends present. I find this interesting and almost used it as a theme for my SoFoBoMo ’09 book. Oh, the duck is saying goodbye and the dogs are saying hello–of course the last photo is just the duck being silly. ;-)