The Duck Inn, Muchas Gracias

So this weekend, before Nora started running a raging 103.5* fever on Saturday night, Brian and I took her to a couple of places to feed some ducks.

This being the capitol city of Oregon we have a couple of fine places to go, one is the old Duck Inn, where my Grandma Peterson used to take us for ice cream, and of course, the State Prison.

First, we started at The Duck Inn.

But first let me tell you how weird it is to live in the town my Grandma did for 60 years of her life, and all of mine...well, until she died a few years ago...

Grandma always drove (albeit badly...she was one of thos "all gas/all brake" kinda drivers). And as I find myself stringing together paths from my house to one store or entertainment or other, I find myself crossing paths with places like The Duck Inn on State Street.

Now granted, it wasn't a "Muchas Gracias" restaurant when I was a kid. But I'll tell you, their food is good Mexican food, so instead of greasy fries, you can now have a very good burrito instead.

When we arrived at the Duck Inn/Muchas Gracias, it was neat to drive up and see the waterfall, and of course the sign saying "keep out" with the run-over fence where obviously a bunch of lawbreakers still cross over to feed the ducks. Well, the Mallard pair that showed up anyway.

Nora was pretty thrilled to see real ducks up close, since the only ones she's seen so far are at the zoo and behind a fence. We threw them both quite a bit of bread, and when no one else showed up, we decided to move on to the other popular place in Salem to feed ducks:

Mill Creek, which runs just outside the jail/prison.

We arrived to find the geese outnumbered the ducks about 5:1, and the seagulls outnumbered the geese about 10:1, so really it wasn't much of a duck/geese feeding at all.

And of course, when we gave Nora a nice toasted crumb of dried bread, her first instinct wasn't to throw it to anyone, but to feed herself.

She had SO much fun, in fact, that she SCREAMED as we tried to get her in the car, and acted as if we were KILLING HER by trying to take her away from the ducks/geese/seagull dropping heaven she was just enjoying.

So I took this picture, just so all of you who say "she's such a happy baby" can realize that yes, she's happy, but ONLY when things are going her way.

And when you take her away from her friends, she is NOT happy!