Girls - Get - Away...Part 2

We left for our get-a-way late on Friday afternoon and hit Starbucks before we did anything else! From there we made the 10 minute drive to the border, got across quickly, passports in hand, and were told 'Have a nice time ladies'. Thank you kindly sir... From here we headed down to Deception Pass, over the beautiful bridge and took the 20 minute ferry from Keystone to Port Townsend. We drove straight thru to Port Angeles, then checked in at our beautiful hotel and headed out for supper. The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast, saw a few local sights and then headed out to Forks for the afternoon.
The weather cooperated beautifully for most of the day. It wasn't until later in the day when we made our way out to the Rainforest and La Push that things got a little stormy! Apparently, when Stephenie Meyer was thinking about where she could base her story about vampires she knew it had to be somewhere that didn't get a lot of sun, so she googled 'rainiest place on the Northern US Continent' and the Olympic Peninsula is what came up. Stephenie lives in Arizona but apparently she now also owns a place somewhere in this area.
We enjoyed seeing all the places that the Twilight books were inspired by and enjoyed the way the town has embraced the fame. you'll notice the Forks High School, The Police Station where Charlie works, the Hospital where Dr. Cullen has a reserved parking spot, the Cullen Bed & Breakfast, and Bella and Charlie's place. Tomorrow I'll take ya'll out to La Push to see the sights there....


There's the hospital where the 'oh so pale' Dr Cullen works. Ok...can I just say that I almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw the movie for the first time. I mean, Carlisle walks in the hospital room and wow...I mean wow...could my 4 year old have done a better job on the makeup? Anyway, there's my vent. I have to admit...it took me forever to even read the books. I was one of those 'no, I don't do vampire books' kind of people. But I'm a sucker, pardon the pun, for a love story and so I succumbed to the pressure. Oh....I loved these books...well, not particularly #4, but I fell head over heels for Twilight...with #3 (Eclipse) getting my vote for favorite. I am anxiously anticipating June 30 when the movie comes out! I didn't see the movie until I had read all the books...and am I ever glad.

Here's Forks High School...home of the Spartans. Everywhere in town you can buy not only Twilight, Forks souveneirs, but also Spartan ware! This particular school is now used for offices for the school district, recently a new high school was built. This building is beautiful and they've left the sign up for all the fans!



Here is the 'Cullen' House. It's actually the Miller Tree Inn Bed & Breakfast, but this is apparently the house that inspired Stephenie as the home of the Cullens. I know, it looks NOTHING like the Cullen home in the movie, but that's all Hollywood. If you read the book, the description of the house is much more like this one. The house used in the filming of the movie was a house down in Oregon owned by a Nike executive. The story is too long to tell here, but it's pretty amazing what they did to use this house for the movie. But I will tell you that if you remember Edward's bedroom in the movie, he had doors going out of his bedroom wall with no porch whatsoever, and apparently that was exactly the case in the house they used...no porch, ,just doors with a huge drop! The house facade had to be reconstructed for the films up here. This home pictured here is owned by a couple who obviously loves the Twilight phenomenon. They welcome all tourists (which would be in the hundreds of thousands) to come up onto the porch (but no further) to read notes from Esme about being off shopping with the girls while the 'boys are off hunting'. It was so neat to see this place...it's a beautiful house.


Charlie's Police Cruiser? Things were pretty quiet around the police station...it was Saturday after all.




Here is the apparent home of the Swans...Bella & Charlie. It's a cute little place, just on the outskirts of town. We also saw the coffee shop where Charlie and Bella eat all the time...also where Stephenie Meyer made her Hollywood debut sitting at the counter in the movie. The coffee shop is soooo run down looking...I only took a picture of the sign...the restaurant itself was too scary! You couldn't convince me to order any berry cobbler in this place! Although sometimes these dumpy diners serve the best food, we weren't willing to find out;)