Smitten in Forks

Last weekend, Megan and I went on a mother-daughter bonding trip to Fork, WA--home of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. We both like the series, but certainly wouldn't have made the trip if it were more than 3 hours away. We did meet some die hard fans there, however--a family from Boston, an 11-year old boy who hooked his mother on the the books, and a couple of young girls from Hungary. Here are some pictures in random order of our trip.

The famous picture in front of the Forks Welcome sign.

Forks is actually named that because three rivers come together there. This is a pic of where the rivers reach the ocean. The town of Forks itself is kind of quaint in an over-commercialized kind of way, but what we really fell in love with was First Beach at LaPush on the Indian Reservation.

First Beach is jammed with tons of bleached driftwood. They made all sorts of interesting and photographical (is that a word?) designs.

Taken through a piece of driftwood.

Some of these pieces of wood were huge--entire trees. In the summer the tide is low and the trees are pretty far up along the beach, but in the winter, the water becomes treacherous with all of these floating pieces of wood.

A look out onto James Island--sacred to the native americans.

Beautiful (and frigid) water.

More scenes from First Beach (There is also a Second and Third Beach, but we are saving those for our next trip).

Get it? Edward doesn't sleep. LOL

The coffee shop where Bella and Charlie eat every week. Megan didn't want to eat there because it looked scary. Heard the food is pretty good though.

The busiest store in town. They have about every item of Twilight merchandise you can imagine. We got Lily a onesie that says "Imprinted" on it. Cute, huh?

Halfway between Forks and LaPush.

Back at the beach in LaPush.

More beautiful scenery. We must have taken a hundred pictures there.

Outside Billy Black's house.

Jacob's motorcycle in front of his house.

The hospital where Carlisle Cullen works. By the way the cafe there is called "Spoons."

Dr. Cullen's reserved parking.

Bella's house.

Bella's truck, complete with photos.

Outside Forks High School. Megan noticed that next year she will also be attending FHS (Fife High School) with the same colors and the same mascot (but their mascot is actually called the Trojans.)

Outside the Cullen's home. It didn't look anything like the one described in the book and wasn't exactly secluded, but I guess the house that really fit the bill, actually burned down in March. Bummer. It must've been the Volturi.

The tour bus.

It took us over an hour to drive from Port Angeles to Forks. By the way, there is nothing inbetween and the two places that looked like they might have restrooms, were closed. Word of advice, use the facilities and gas up in Port Angeles if you go. There was however a beautiful lake--Crescent Lake--that we drove along for a good 25 minutes during sunset. It was spectacular.

More views of the lake.

Sign outside the Dazzled by Twilight store in Port Angeles.

The movie theater (Lincoln Theater) that Bella goes to with Mike and her friends.

Look who we just happened to run into.

The restaurant that Edward take Bella to on their first date after he saves her from the thugs. This restaurant is actually mentioned by name in the book. It's a nice kind of upscale place. I couldn't resist. I had the mushroom ravioli and it was to die for.

Kodak moment.

One of the bookstores Bella might have popped into looking for books on vampires. By the way, Port Angeles is the "big city" to Forks. Interestingly enough the population of Port Angeles is only 19,000. They get quite a bit of tourist traffic in the summer because they are one of the ferry ports to Victoria, Vancouver Island and the San Juan islands. Forks, on the other hand only has a population of 3175--half the size of Milton--but no fast food, or movie theater. Seattle is at least 3 hours away. Don't think I could live there permanently, but it was gorgeous to visit. Next time we'll bring the whole family and camp in the Hoh Rainforest.