My Dream Date in Canton, Ohio

“OK, honey, if you’re paying for a sitter so we can have a whole day together, here’s my dream date for Saturday. I know you’d love to spend the whole day at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but this is supposed to be my turn to pick, so here goes.

I thought we’d start off in downtown Canton with coffee at Muggzwicz. I love it there. It’s so cozy, with all of those couches to sit on. They have really good music in the evenings, but I don’t know what they have in the mornings. At any rate, it will be a good place to sit and read the Repository and chat.

Next, I want to go to the Farmer’s Market while we’re downtown Canton. I heard they have found some local bands to provide entertainment while shop for locally grown produce.

Then, when we finish at the market, I want to go to the Canton Civic Center and buy our tickets for the Journey concert next month. I just love Steve Perry. Does that make me old?

Then we’ll have to stop by the Gift Garden at Whipple Dale Center. The differently-abled employees there make some really cool stuff I wanted to look at for Christmas gift ideas. Also, the Rotary is having a “Great Pumpkin Race” that starts and ends there. It is a fundraiser for them.

Depending on how long the line is for the Journey tickets, we may have time to drive down to Amish country after that. I don’t want to drive a half hour away if we don’t have time to do a little shopping before lunch, and I don’t want to eat down there because I always eat too much when we do that. I’d much rather go to Heggy’s here in town and have a burger and some of those fries with the butter on top. We can also pick up some nuts and some of their wonderful chocolates to take to the movie theater with us.

The Lincoln Lions Theatre is showing March of the Penguins this weekend. The movies there are so cheap. And they usually get them not too long after they’ve been at the regular theaters. After that, if we’re not too sick of chocolate from what we bought at Heggy’s, I’d like to take the London’s factory tour and pick up some candy at their gift shop for the kids. You know they’ll be expecting something since we are leaving them all day.

Let’s go back downtown and go through the Classic Car Museum. Or maybe Saxon House – is it open on Saturdays? I like seeing where President McKinley lived. I’d love to go through the First Ladies’ Library, too, but I’m sure it is not open. When we leave there, maybe we can rent a room for the night at the Marriott McKinley Grand. We’ll need a place to change into our evening clothes anyways, so we may as well just stay there. We can go to dinner at Peter Shear’s, then to the Canton Ballet production of Wizard of Oz.

When we wake up Sunday, I hear the 356th Fighter Squad has an awesome Sunday brunch. I know I’ve run past my allotment of one day, but there’s so much more to do. I’d love to go up to the MAPS Air Museum and see all of the vintage airplanes. They are always adding new exhibits. And we have to have lunch at Kennedy’s BBQ. We could go across the street afterwards and visit the McKinley Monument. Maybe we could finish off the weekend at the St. George’s Greek Oktoberfest.

So, are you still willing to do this or did I scare you off?”