York Harbor, Maine

Stanley went to visit Meg's Aunt Sue who lives in Massachusetts, but took Stanley on an adventure up the east coast through the New England states to York Harbor, Maine.  

They went to the Long Sands Beach, which is a part of York Beach, Maine.

They checked out the beach, and even though it was rather cold, there were still surfers surfing!  

One nice surfer even let Stanley try out her board!  She even posed for a picture with Stanley!  

Stanley & Aunt Sue went hunting for sea shells!  It was very easy to find shells because Hurricane Sandy had blown through, and the strong ocean tides brought more to the beach.  They even discovered some periwinkles.  Periwinkles are small, edible snails.  Unfortunately, all of the periwinkles were occupied, so Stanley couldn't collect any of their shells.  

After searching for shells, Aunt Sue took Stanley to the nearby Nubble Lighthouse.  

Finally, to wrap up their visit in Maine, Aunt Sue & Stanley enjoyed fried shrimp at Bob's Clam Shack!  

Hopefully, Aunt Sue will get to take Stanley on some adventures back home in Massachusetts before he comes back to Pittsburgh!  

We were excited when Aunt Sue came in for Thanksgiving and brought back a box of beautiful seashells for Team Lewis!  Thank you, Aunt Sue!  

   

Seattle, Washington

Flat Stanley headed to the West Coast to visit with Deana & her dog, Soco, in Seattle Washington.  He arrived on October 8th.  It was cool and sunny -- it was not raining!!  

One cool place to visit in Seattle is the Market Theater Gum Wall.  The Gum Wall is in Post Alley under Pike Place Market.  The wall is covered in chewed bubble gum!  The brick wall covered is 15 feet high and 50 feet long!  Some areas have inches of bubble gum piled up.  The history of the Gum Wall began back in 1993, when patrons of a show stuck their used bubble gum on the wall & pushed coins into the blobs of gum!  Theater workers scraped away the gum twice, but it was a losing battle.  In 2009, the Market Theater Gum Wall was named the 5th germiest tourist attraction in the world!  Stanley was sure to stay germ free, but he did bring back some special packs of Market Theater Gum Wall gum!  How cool!

Flat Stanley got to go to work with Deana.  Deana works at Amazon.com!  Deana is a "UX Designer", meaning she works on designing their website for user experience!  Too cool!  Stanley was over dressed for the day, as everyone wears jeans to work!  He liked seeing the amazon.com headquarters.  It was even cooler that you can bring your dog to work!  

Deana also took Stanley to the famous Space Needle!  The Space Needle turned 50 this year!  Stanley was amazed at how tall it was!  At it's highest point, the Space Needle is 605 feet tall!  At its widest point, it is 138 feet!  The space needle wears 9,550 tons!  It was built for the Worlds Fair in 1962!  The Space Needle has a gift shop, an observation deck, and a restaurant that rotates while you dine!  There are elevators that take the riders to the top; they travel 10 miles per hour, taking visitors 41 seconds to get to the top.  On windier days, the elevators are slowed to 5 miles per hour.  The Space Needle can withstand winds up to 200 miles per hour, or an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1!  That's a pretty strong building!  It also has many lightening rods to protect it from a bad storm!  The line was a little too long for Stanley, so he was unable to go up to the observation deck!  Maybe next time he goes to Seattle?  

Stanley's last stop in Seattle was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Bill Gates is the founder of the Microsoft Corporation.  This organization helps people in need all over the world!  The goals of the foundation are to help enhance healthcare and reduce poverty.  Also, in the United States, the foundation wants to expand educational opportunities and have more access to information technology.  They even helped build a big building on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh!  They donated $20,000,000 to create the 'Gates Center for Computer Science' which opened in September of 2009.  

Thank you, Deana, for showing Stanley a great time in Seattle!  He was so excited to come back with presents for Team Lewis.  

P.S. - Stanley told Ms. Lewis that the original Starbucks was built in Seattle!  How cool is that?!  

St. Louis, Missouri

Flat Stanley just arrived back from St. Louis, Missouri!  He was visiting Robby's cousin, Tiernan.  It was a fairly warm day when Stanley arrived.  

While in St. Louis, Stanley went to a playoff Cardinal's game!  They took Stanley to dinner to their favorite pizza place for dinner.  They went to the park.  They even took Flat Stanley to meet Tiernan's grandma!  

The coolest thing was Flat Stanley got to go see Tiernan at school on Halloween!  Stanley wished he had a cool costume like Tiernan!  

Thanks for showing me such a great time, Tiernan!  I had a lot of fun with you & your family!  

New York City New York

Carlynton's Central Office staff member, Michale Herrmann, took Flat Stanley to see her daughter, and Carlynton graduate (2001), Bridget Herrmann, in New York City!  Mrs. Herrmann & Stanley were originally planning on cheering Bridget on while she ran in her first marathon, The ING New York City Marathon.  Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy changed those plans.  Despite the weather, the Herrmann ladies had a great time with Stanley!  

The Herrmanns took Flat Stanley to many awesome sights in New York! 

They went to Madison Square Garden!

They went shopping & even bought an I Love NY tshirt for a special member of Team Lewis!  

Stanley was even lucky enough to catch the Steelers-Giants game!  He was glad to know that Bridget had a Terrible Towel!! 

Stanley got to tour the city underground, travelling along the subway system!

Flat Stanley went for a run with Bridget around Central Park!  He was exhausted!  Bridget is pretty amazing to be able to run about 6.1 miles!  That is about one-quarter of what she was going to run for the marathon!

Stanley was lucky enough to make it to 42nd Street!  

The Herrmanns even took Flat Stanley to Times Square!  He thought it was absolutely gorgeous!!  He is considering going back for New Years Eve to see the ball drop!  

The team Bridget was a part of for the ING NYC Marathon was called "Team Boomer".  The team was led by Boomer Esaison.  Boomer was a former NFL star quarterback.  He played for the Bengals, the Cardinals, and the Jets.  Team Boomer fundraised money for fighting Cystic Fibrosis.  Bridget raised $3,000 for her team!  Boomer was holding a prerace dinner with the team.  He still had the dinner although the race was cancelled.  Boomer was kind enough to take his picture with Bridget and Flat Stanley!  

Sadly, all good things must come to an end.  Mrs. Herrmann took Stanley back to Pittsburgh with her for his first plane ride.  He rode on a 747 from LaGuardia Airport to Washington DC. 

Thank you, Herrmann ladies for showing Stanley such an amazing time!  Team Lewis loved learning about your trip!  We also appreciated the glass paper weight with the Statue of Liberty etched in it!  Beautiful!