Seattle & Forks part 2: Forks

We started out for Port Angeles with a run of good luck - firstly, I could find a ferry on the sat nav (British for GPS!), and secondly we didn't need to wait at all for the ferry. We just drove up and got on! It didn't take too long to get over the water, and we met a couple of fellow twihards on the way. I had a moment of wind-in-hair related joy, and then we all had a moment of wondering if the movie Double Jeopardy was filmed around here.

The road to Port Angeles was a lot bigger and busier than I'd thought, and it actually took no time at all. Although I was kind of shocked that most of the speed limits were 55mph... to me, that is snail's pace. I'd normally drive those roads at a steady 70mph. However the relative slowness of our car meant I got a good look at some white picket fences, sheriff stations, roadkill and signs. We got into Port Angeles at about 4pm and spent some time poking about in the shops and alleyways (hoping for a sparkly savior, but none were found *sad face*). It seems to me, retrospectively, that PA has only been lightly touched with Twilight fever. There were window displays in book stores, and there was a Dazzled By Twilight store, but all pale in comparison to the efforts made in Forks.

Dinner in Bella Italia was nice... we shared a mushroom ravioli as an appetiser (starter in British *giggle*) and it tasted gooood. Our hostess was a little strange, she seemed perhaps high or just operating with a little more distance from the human race than I would normally expect. I managed to drip oil on my top *CURSES!!!* but Amy saved the day with her Tide pen. I want one. We don't have them. USA 1, UK 0. *hmpf*

Later in the evening we went to the Lincoln theatre to watch Eclipse. This would turn out to be my last theatre viewing as while I was away the UK sneakily removed it from their schedules! *grrrr*

The butter popcorn was good, and the movie was obviously great. What I appreciated even more than that was watching with my VM friends, including Melissa who is just as crazy about adoptions as I am, so we both probably drove Amanda nuts by telling her about everything we 'owned' from the saga as the movie played out!! ROFL!

Then we headed off for Forks. After narrowly avoiding adding to the road kill ourselves when a deer popped up in our headlights, we got to the cabin. It was just lovely! Big, plenty of wood cladding, enough models/ paintings/ plush toys of fish to last a lifetime and finally, and best, we found out that THE STEPHENIE MEYER had stayed there when she visited Forks. I came down from that fangirl high a while later...

Day one in Forks meant eating at the diner. It was awesome. Great food, great company and a giant stuffed Elk head, just in case we forgot what sort of a place we were in! After eating to the point of bursting (hash browns, eggs over easy, bacon and my first ever biscuit *US style* to try) we headed out into Forks to explore.

The first stop was the High School, as it was right by the diner. It's currently being demolished and replaced with a nice shiny new school, which is good for the residents of Forks, but bad for visiting twihards. It made me sad that I couldn't use my visitor's pass. *snigger*



If you look closely you will see the shiny silver Volvo in the picture on the left... *eeee* We went to both Dazzled by Twilight stores (the fag ship store's decoration was just amazing!), Native to Twilight, Leppell's Flower Shop (no flowers I could see), the Thriftway & Outfitters, and several other shops too. I picked up a couple of tops and a hoodie, as well as random small miscellaneous items like sparkly apples for my "special" bookcase. Basically, if you're a twihard and you go, go in knowledge that you will spend a crapload of money. I was actually surprised I didn't spend more, but I didn't like a lot of the designs... I felt like I could do better. Time for a couple of links... I have two cafepress shops one for Twilight stuff and one for general book stuff.

We then went to the Forks Chamber of Commerce and started the self-guided tour around the town to see the Cullen house, the Swan house, the community hospital and the city hall/ police station. It was cool peeking through the windows of the Cullen house, as we could see they had a replica of the movie art made of graduation caps. We also had this idea for parking our pimp ride in Carlisle's parking space at the hospital, as it looked about right... but sadly they had just redone the surface so we couldn't drive over it. Thank goodness for photoshop!! We ate at Sully's Burgers for dinner, and some had the Bella burger, but I personally think pineapple is strictly a pudding (that's dessert in American!) food, so I gave it a miss. The burgers were good though. That evening we made bracelets and smores at the cabin, and generally talked a whole load of Twilight! It was great. *sigh*

Day two brought us trees. Lots of trees. We decided (with Stacie's local knowledge) that the Hoh rainforest would be too misty first thing in the morning, so we went to Cape Flattery. It took a while to get there because we kept stopping off to take pictures of the gorgeous scenery. Like this:


I particularly liked this stop off, as I saw my first proper *wild* bald eagle there. It just lazily flew in and perched about 50ft above our heads. So freaking cool!! Anyway, we hiked down to Cape Flattery, which took about half an hour, and appreciated the awesome beauty of the Olympic peninsula.












On the way back up, we stopped (gasping for air) to admire the scenery and to take a couple more pictures... including a recreation of the famous spidermonkey scene... you can see my facebook for that!! *friends only* We recreated a couple more scenes like that over the day, including the face punch and the chasing with seaweed ones. :-)

The Hoh rainforest was simply gorgeous in the late afternoon light, and I took a zillion pictures, but unfortunately the mosquitos thought it was great too. :-( So, while we had an awesome time, we didn't linger as much as we might have. I did sit still long enough for a picture, and so did my co-stars... mini-Edward and mini-Jacob.












Day three brought beaches, rather than trees. And rain. Lots and LOTS of rain. So we headed out to La Push, stopped by Jacob Black's house in the rain. The went to First Beach in the rain. Then went to the Three Rivers diner in the rain, and finally we went to Second Beach in the rain! *As if by magic it now rains like a monsoon while I am writing this* La Push was a little bit run down, but apparently not as bad as in recent years. It would be nice to think that Twilight tourism has helped inject a little cash into the community, but I'm not sure they see much of it really. There are few places to find merchandise, and it feels relatively untouched.

I was pretty drenched most of the day, but it didn't kill the fun at all. The driftwood on the beaches was really impressive, and you have to climb over about 30m of it to even get onto a beach at all. We had fun finding colored pebbles *I want a GWEEN won!!* and generally just walking about. I think anyone watching would know that only twihards would be on the beach in that kind of weather!

The hike to second beach was really nice. Its about 40-50 minutes through pretty woods, with a heck of a lot of steps down to the beach, but it was totally worth it. By the time we made it to the tide pools, the tide was fairly low, but we still needed to hop-scotch our way through the waves to avoid getting wet feet. The starfish and anemones were just amazing! I secretly thought they would be less exciting in color than the ones in the Seattle aquarium, just because a lot of coloring depends on the food an animal gets, so you can boost it if you feed them the right foods. However, the purples were just as purple and the greens were astounding. We spent quite a long time poking around in the rock pools and that was one of my favorite bits. We nearly lost Amy a couple of times as she went really far out on the rocks!

We decided that the best thing to do, having been cold and wet all day was then to grab our swim suits from the cabin and go to the Sol Duc hot springs. Sounded great in theory, and it even looked nice when we got there, if you discount the zillions of people. The picture (above) is one from their website... it did not look like that, but I thought I'd spare you the barf-fest of what it really looked like. Inappropriate massaging couples, gross budda-like men, weirdos in jean shorts and people trying to snorkle through the mineral waters. Not so bad do I hear you say? Well, how about this. It smelled like farts (that'll be the sulphur) and the water made your skin feel slimey. So slimey, farty water infested with too many gross people. *BLEURCH* Melissa & Christine lasted 10 minutes before they were too grossed out, but Amanda and I toughed it out for a full 45. The best bit of the hot springs? The too cute chipmunk I saw on the way in. *awwwww* He was having himself a little panic attack about the number of people and lack of trees. But he was still gorgeous!

After that, there was just time to hang out, repack the bag and then go to bed really. The next day we got up at 5.30am to hug Amanda, Christine and Melissa goodbye, and then we all went back to bed for a bit. We had breakfast back in Forks and then hit the road for the airport. The end of a fantastic holiday - the places we went and the things we did were awesome, but without the girls it wouldn't have been anything like as good. So, like we often say on TMs... we started out doing this for the love of Twilight, but in the end, its the friends we make through it all that mean the most.

(A little photoshop jiggery pokery never hurt anemones!!)

Seattle & Forks part 1: Seattle

Oh it has taken me a million years, quite literally, to figure out this blog stuff and to actually think about writing anything on it. Figures then that the first thing I would write is about trip to Seattle & Forks. My ultimate fan girl holiday.

First Seattle.


I got there on a Sunday night and had to wait for a couple of friends to arrive. Sea-Tac airport is strangely lacking in useful seats (oh sure, they have plenty hidden in corners, but these are not much use to the likes of me), so I sat on a plinth-ish looking baggage collection thingie. Well, on the edge. I wasn't going around like so much fake Louis Vuitton. :-) I thought it would take hours for the girls to get there, but the slapping of Amanda's excited feet running my way brought me back from the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (great multi-level YA book) and back to reality. We picked up Amy a little while later and then got the light rail into Seattle. On this point, I'd like to say well done to Seattle. Getting 26 miles for $2.50 with no hassel demands a round of applause!

We checked in the Red Lion (& Lamb, oh the reference!) hotel and started a quick wander about to find dinner. Of course we went in the wrong direction from all the restaurants, but we eventually found a PF Changs and I enjoyed their Singapore Street Noodles. *yum*

Day one of the holiday started with Blueberry French Toast (& a side of the American bacon I'd been dreaming about for months) at the Elliot Bay Book Cafe. The idea was to get right into fan girling with a trip into the adjoining bookstore after breakfast. However, the builders were in and the books were gone. *frown* The breakfast was good though, and I at least got a proper cup of tea.

We wandered around the Pioneer Square area, and I was distinctly not wowed by the historicness of it. I'm a Brit, we have castles & junk. But it was nice, and bizarrely filled with carpets. If you ever need a rug, Pioneer Square in Seattle is the place for you. We made our way up to Pike Place Market and spent a while gawping at the fish stall. I think everyone was just waiting for them to throw the fish. I was hoping it would be a juicy big one, but instead it was a sad looking something which is obviously the throwing fish. *ri ron't row* BUT all the fish and crabs were of pretty big proportions and if you stand there long enough they will eventually throw something a bit more exciting!


The market was really cool, and at the time we went, it wasn't too bad for toursits. I'd say a morning visit is a good time to go, plus there are so many people inviting you to try their fruit, oils and chocolate flavored pasta (!) that you can eat your way through. Right over the road from the market is the Beecher's Cheese shop, which sells the most awesome mac & cheese in the world. So awesome that we went there for it both days we were in Seattle. You can watch them making cheese, and if you are lucky to have your very own bio teacher to accompany you, you can even get talked through the process. *grin*

In the afternoon we went on Bob Speidel's Underground Tour. It took us ages to find the darn thing because the directions I found just said it was in Pioneer's Square towards the SW side. But Pioneer's Square is a QUARTER not a SQUARE! Filled with many roads!!! *grumbles about road taxonomy* It was kind of fun, and I was identified as having travelled the furthest to be there. In fact once they found out I was British, they pretty much said that nothing they had to show me would impress me. I guess cause we have castles. :-) Well, it was ok. I didn't mind the lack of castles, and I applaud how fast Seattle has gone from prospectors, saloons, "sewing circles" (brothels back in the day) and wooden buildings to the sprauling metropolis that it is now. I felt like they were a little reliant on toilet humor, and I was also kind of shocked that I was the only one who knew that Thomas Crapper invented the toilet?!

After the toilet tour we went to Ivars for dinner - the early bird special suited me just fine as by that point it was about 2am in Jen Land. Their clam chouder is nice, and their fish and chips even better. Post-Ivars we walked to the Space Needle and felt very smug about buying one ticket and going up before sunset to wait for the Seattle nightscape. No one needs to pay for two tickets. If you do, you're a mug! I took some pictures which I thought were pretty cool... here's one:

By this stage we'd been up since 7am, walked for almost the whole time and were in a state that can only be described as mildly oblivious. It was in this condition that we decided it would be an awesome idea to walk back to the hotel down 5th Av, which took 40 minutes (of which I can remember about 10 min), compared with taking the monorail at the bottom of the Space Needle which would have taken 2 minutes door to almost door. And we would have been spared the sight of a homeless man pleasuring himself/ someone else. Its hard to tell when your eyeballs are burning like someone poured hot oil over them.

Day two, and we were trying to think how to fit in the library into our itinerary. We never did as it opens at 10am, but if you ever go to Seattle, go look around. It is the most impossibly cool piece of architechture. Instead we went to the Science Fiction Museum *nerd alert sounds* and the Experience Music Project. Of the two, the sci-fi museum was the best. It's filled with stuff to make a trekkie squeal, and boy did I! I'll save you the gory details, but I wish I was cool enough to wear this t-shirt (left) and still attract normal men.

There was also a moment when I was choosing THE trip magnet (each trip I get at least one awesome and different magnet) and found something so funny that I literally snorted and howled with laughter. This would be the top of the two magnets on the right. You've got to be a ST fan to get it, but I loved it. I apparently loved it so much that a previously undecided little boy who was also choosing a magnet also decided to buy it. The actual Seattle trip magnet is underneath. It's a laser gun, *awesome* with a dangly bit. ;-)

I really was quite non-plussed about the Experience Music Project. Other than the fact that you can shorten its name down to EMP which is also short for electro-magnetic-pulse, and THAT'S cool. There were a bunch of guitars and stuff, mostly from Seattle based bands. Disappointingly little Nirvana memorabilia, but I guess that anything to do with Kurt Cobain must be worth a freaking fortune. If you like Jimi Hendrix, then you'd be happy though. Personally, I'm a little "meh" about him.

After the Sci-Fi/ EMP we took the monorail (we learn!!) to the hotel to pick up Christine, who had a considerably LESS smooth journey with the light rail. She apparently got stuck in the ghetto and had to get a bus with 3 old ladies. Sounds like the premise for a short story. We all got some more mac & cheese *dribble* and headed off to the aquarium.


THE AQUARIUM IS AWESOME! It's got the best touch pools ever, and I poked anemones, starfish of all varieties as well as a sea cucumber. The colors of the animals were amazing and I definitely let my bio geek loose. :-D The feeding of the giant octopus (Fifi - WTF?!) was really cool too. Also great that Amanda sat on the floor with the pre-schoolers. *bless* I'm going to reign in the beast about the aquarium, but seriously. GO.

After that, we wandered through Seattle a little, heading vaguely to the restaurant area, and hung out at a Barnes & Noble for a while. I loved this. Sitting in amongst the books we love, talking about them (annoying Amanda while she tried to finish Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr - don't bother reading that one). It was one of my favorite moments. (I'm sorry I put the picture in, as I know Amy hates it, but I love this pic so much. It makes me happy!) I bought a couple of books while there: Beastly by Alex Flinn, Wake by Lisa McMann and Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. I already have the last two, but like any good fangirl I need my sets of books to match!!

The final morning saw us waiting for Melissa to arrive with our pimped out rental car, and us struggling to pack it. It all worked out pretty well, although Amanda had to sit Indian style in the back as we couldn't quite get one suitcase in the trunk. Then it was time to turn on the sat nav (I got crap for not calling it a GPS, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one!!) and head off for the ferry, Port Angeles and finally, FORKS!!