Forks, Washington

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Yesterday we drove to Forks, Washington. Forks is the setting of the Twilight novels. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the Twilight novels are kind of like Harry Potter for teenage girls and women (just for girls, not women - Craig). It’s a love story between a teenage girl and a vampire. The books have been made into movies, and it was the sets of such movies that I visited in Vancouver. I also tried to spot some Twilight stars in Baton Rouge (to no avail), Louisiana, for those who remember.

Now none of the movies were filmed here, but the author of the novels (Stephenie Meyer) visited this town and used the various shops and locations in her books. So you can really imagine that you’re in the middle of the novel when you’re here.

The drive here was beautiful. It took us through Olympic National Park, where we drove past thousands of huge, deep green fir trees and a huge still lake with mountains in the background and mist creeping across the water. It was incredible. A lot of the trees had moss growing all over them, right to the tips of their branches. (There was fantastic scenery on the trip, it’s the part which I really enjoyed - Craig)

It was only fitting that when we arrived in Forks, it was raining. Forks is the wettest town in the USA, which is one of the reasons why Stephenie Meyer based her novels here (the vampires can’t be in direct sunlight). I was happy that I was getting the true Forks experience with the rain, but I wished that it would stop when it started ruining all my photos!

The town of Forks has really embraced the Twilight phenomenon. They have taken houses that look like the houses of the main characters in the novels and designated them as the character’s houses, with signs out the front of the houses and everything. There are at least three Twilight gift shops in a town that has maybe 10 shops in total, and every other shop (including the service station!) advertises that it has Twilight merchandise.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a little self-driven Twilight tour of the town. Now, I’m aware that this is going to make no sense to anyone who hasn’t read or seen any of the Twilight novels or movies, and I know that this would be most of the people reading my blogs. So feel free to skim read these parts! We visited “Bella’s house”, Forks high school, Forks Outfitters (where Bella worked in the novels), the police station where Charlie worked and the hospital where Dr. Cullen worked (the town have even put up a sign designating a parking spot for him!). Out the front of the town’s visitors centre they have two trucks parked, one being a truck that matches the description of Bella’s truck in the books and another matching Bella’s truck from the movies.

I went into one of the many Twilight gift shops, but I was very controlled and only bought a magnet. I have never seen so much Twilight and general vampire paraphernalia in my entire life.

Today we drove to La Push, home of Jacob. It was really cool to see an Indian reservation, and the beach there was nice. After La Push we headed to Port Angeles for lunch (Twilight fans may remember that’s where Bella went shopping for prom dresses), and then drove back to Seattle to jump on a plane to San Francisco.

We arrived at the airport a bit early and the previous San Fran flight had been delayed and hadn’t left yet, so they asked us if we wanted to hop on that. We did, and we got into San Fran a couple of hours earlier than we thought we would which was awesome. What was not so awesome is that our bags didn’t make it into the flight with us (grrr!), so they’ll courier them over to our hotel tomorrow morning. Quite annoying, but what can you do?

I’m really looking forward to getting out and seeing San Fran, I’ve heard very good things! Craig came here with his family when he was younger and he loved it, so he’s happy to be back here.

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