Forks on the Road

If you've been paying attention at all to pop culture in the past five years, you've probably heard about that little Twilight series. Yes, that one. The one with the vampires and the girl who doesn't realize she's in an abusive/controlling relationship.

Anyway, the reason I initially read those books was because someone told me they were set in Washington. Not only Washington, but small town Washington. Things are hardly ever set in Seattle, let alone in an average Washington town! I love Washington, so I jumped at the chance to read something that takes place there. Of course, I was disappointed due to the fact that the reason it's set in Forks, WA is because it gets the least amount of sun out of anywhere in the US (or so the book says) and that Stephenie Meyer hadn't ever been to Forks (or Washington really) before writing the books.

Despite the long list of disappointments that stem from those books, I have decided not to take them too seriously (beyond being slightly afraid of the influence they have on young girls) and be generally amused by them. Which is why when Chelsea and I decided we wanted to take an end of the summer road trip to the Olympic Peninsula, we HAD to go to Forks. Beyond the fact it's an excellent source of amusement, it's also a really pretty area and near some good campsites.

Chelsea got to my house Tuesday afternoon. After she got there we spent most of the afternoon/night playing Fable 2 and Assassin's Creed (I played Fable, she played Assassin's Creed), getting lost in my hometown while I was driving, getting groceries and packing for the trip, and whatnot. Oh, and Chelsea broke the internet. Well, it was more that her computer decided that it wanted to take over the internet at my house and not let anyone use it. I blame Windows Vista which should have never ever ever been produced.

The next morning we got up early, packed up Chelsea's car with the random assortment of camping supplies my dad collected for us, and headed off. It took us about five hours to get to Forks, mostly because both of us kept getting lost and missing turns. Still, we did eventually get there, and oh was it worth it.

Or not.

Forks is a really small town. There's really only one street going through the town that takes a little over two minutes to drive through (and that's including the time spent stopped at the one light). There probably wouldn't be anything to do at all in the town, except for all the random Twilight stuff. There were two Dazzled by Twilight stores in Forks (there's at least one more in Port Angeles), a Native to Twilight store, Twilight rooms at the motels, some store Alice "likes", a Dr. Cullen parking spot at the hospital, Bella's house, two trucks that resemble Bella's, and some sort of reference in every single business in that town. There were signs advertising stores that Bella would frequent (like the Pharmacy, haha) and signs advertising a THREE HOUR Twilight tour. I'd really like to know what they do for three hours. I suppose they visit all of those things I just mentioned, and maybe a tour of the house (which, by the way, we did not go see).

We did go into one of the Dazzled by Twilight stores. Mostly, I was amused by most of the merchandise. I was tempted to buy the shirtless Jacob action figure, because I have a weakness for action figures (and you thought I was going to say I had a weakness to hot, shirtless guys). Except when I saw that the price was around $35 (it might have been $25, I can't quite remember) I opted not to buy the overpriced nonsense. I did buy a few postcards, because I love postcards and funny things. There was one extremely creepy sticker that read, "Edward can bust my headboard, bite my pillows, and bruise my body anyday!" This sticker pretty much sums up the two main things I don't like about the series. One, the writing is horrible ("anyday" is not a word, just in case you were wondering). Two, the "bruise my body" bit is frightening no matter how you spin it. I mean honestly, doesn't anyone proofread?

That night, we camped at a campsite near Rialto Beach and we managed to set up the tent AND cook our food despite our lack of height and camping expertise. I'm actually really proud of us both with how well the whole camping thing went. The next morning we packed everything back into the car, and stopped at Rialto Beach before heading back home. The beach itself was really pretty and the waves were gorgeous. After watching the waves for a bit, I attempted to skip rocks and to teach Chelsea how to skip them. Except those aforementioned waves kept causing problems.

On the way back we stopped for amazing Thai food in Port Angeles, and we also drove through Chelsea's home town so that I could see it. I enjoyed seeing some of the places she'd talked about and the school she went to.

All in all, it was a good trip. If you'd like to see a little bit more of a dynamic (and shorter) record of the trip, check out my video about it at this link here. Subscribe to my youtube channel if you'd like to see more vlogs from me in the future. I might not update my blog every time I post a video, so subscribing to the channel would be a good way to keep up with the vlogs.