1. By Michael Bivens ©April 2005 ReigningPages What I did on Spring Break by Flat Stanley Bivens

2. Hi, I’m Flat Stanley and my buddy Jackson sent me to go visit Uncle Mikie in Canton, Oh.

3. After a 450 mile trip with the mailman, I arrived in Canton, Ohio. Canton is best known for having the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the First Ladies Hall of Fame. Canton is about 50 miles south of Cleveland and Lake Erie, the northern coast of the United States. Canton, Ohio I-77

4. This is Mikie’s house and car. He and his four cocker spaniels dogs and one cat live here across the street from Gibbs Elementary School.

5. When I got there, Mikie took this picture of us with his webcam. You can see him and his house on the internet anytime at http://reigningpages.com/cams

6. These are Mikie’s dogs: Aries, Gabby, Joxer, and Zeus. Mikie has dogs from A – Z.

7. Canton is the birthplace William McKinley, the 25th American president. In 1896, the soon-to-be president did all of his campaigning from a front porch in downtown Canton. The state of Ohio is known as the "mother of the presidents" because eight presidents have been born in the state William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William H. Taft, Warren G. Harding President McKinley and his wife are buried in this monument

8. At the top of the monument steps, you can see downtown Canton over to the left. Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is number 47. Until August 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.

9. Lake Erie is the northern border of Ohio (between Ohio and Canada) and the Ohio River is southern border (between Ohio and West Va. and Kentucky); Pennsylvania on the right, while the states of Indiana and Michigan are on the left.

10. Ohio gets it's nickname (the "Buckeye State") from the state tree. Buckeye candy is a round ball of peanut butter dipped in chocolate, so that a little peanut butter shows. It looks just like a buckeye tree nut. Ohio's state bird is the same as North Carolina's - the cardinal.

11. Canton is home to Timken Roller Bearing, Hoover (where they make vacuum cleaners), Diebold, and the Smuckers company (where they make the jelly) is over in Orrville. (Smuckers was founded in 1897, the same year that McKinley was elected President.) About 10 miles up the highway is Akron, which has the Inventors HOF and the Goodyear company (they make tires). That's the GoodYear Blimp that flies around every year during the Football Hall of Fame Festival week.

12. Canton has a fireworks display for the 4 th of July near the McKinley monument; but they have a really big fireworks show at the end of the Pro Football HOF Festival week.

13. Uncle Mikie and his friend Jim have a pool. They invite everyone over in the summer time to swim and have cook-outs. Ritchie, Stanley, and Kerri in the pool

14. Jim helps me float in the pool, so that I don't get too wet. That's me and Mikie on a Yertle the Turtle pool float.

15. Mikie, Jim, their friend Joyce, and I took a trip over to Youngstown and saw Herman the camel. He loves attention.

16. We went hiking at Nelson Ledges, near Cleveland. That area is a natural watershed which means that all the rain water that falls to the north goes into the Lake Erie and the Saint Lawrence River; while the rain that flows to the south goes into the Ohio River and eventually empties into the Mississippi River.

17. Up in Cleveland, we saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and went to a festival by Lake Erie in downtown.

18. The city of Charlotte is nearly as big as Cleveland now. Cleveland has 2.9 million people living in the area, and Charlotte now has 2.2 million people. The very famous hospital called the Cleveland Clinic is up here in Ohio.

19. Right beside Lake Erie is the Burke Lakefront Airport that has air shows in the summer time. We saw lots of planes flying fast and doing stunts in the air.

20. Ohio has two major amusement parks. The park with the most roller coasters in the world is called Cedar Point, and is right beside Lake Erie. This ride is called the Millennium Force and goes up 300 ft. in the air.

21. Another amusement park is down in the southwest part of the state and it is called Kings Island. I rode the "Beast" with Mikie and Jim and had a lot of fun!

22. Jim told me I better not ride the water rides at Kings Island or I might get to wet and rip, or my colors might run. The amusement parks were lots of fun in the sun!

23. Also in the southwest part of Ohio, near Columbus the state capital, is the Wright Patterson Air Force Base and Museum. This museum has many of the old presidential airplanes and airplanes from the all the wars. Ohio is where Wilbur and Orville Wright were born and invented the airplane. Mikie thinks that it's wrong that the Ohio license plate says "First in Flight" with a picture of Kitty Hawk, since Kitty Hawk is in North Carolina and that's where the first airplane flew.

24. The museum has the space capsule from Apollo 15. Two astronauts have come from Ohio - Neil Armstrong, the first man on moon, and retired Senator John Glenn. We even saw some old bombs from the World Wars.

25. I got to sit in the cockpit of an old F-4 Phantom fighter jet.

26. I got to go to the Ringling Brothers Circus too. We saw elephants, horses, zebras, lions and tigers.

27. I even saw a man get shot out of a cannon! The circus was very exciting!

28. Last Christmas, Mikie made these gingerbread houses for his family and brought them on the plane when he flew to Charlotte to spend Christmas with his mom and family. These houses are just the right size for me. And they taste as good as they look.

29. Even though Seattle, WA. has the most rain, this area of Northeast Ohio where Mikie lives, is the cloudiest portion of the USA. The Winter temperatures range between -25 and 45 degrees, while Summer is usually between 55 and 85 degrees. The average snowfall is 55 inches; but this year set a record of over 107 inches of snow!

30. Since they were still having snow in Canton, Ohio at the end of April, I was glad to get back to Jackson in Charlotte. That's Jackson and me in the picture with his brother Jonathan, his sister Jenny, and his two cousins, Kayla and Allison.

31. Kings Island Wright Patterson Air Force Museum Cedar Point Nelson Ledges All the places I visited in Ohio

32. By Michael Bivens ©April 2005 ReigningPages