WORDS! FOR YOU!
We left Vancouver on Saturday morning, a little later than we intended – neither of us felt like getting out of bed when the alarm went off, so snooze was hit repeatedly until my bladder could not be silenced any further. We were out of the house by 9, and at the border by 10 along with the rest of the Lower Mainland. An hour or so later, we managed to get through the crossing and into the US (after only a mild scolding from the guard because Ed kept putting his sunglasses back on so he could see). I insisted on a stop at Trader Joe’s for snacks; something that would come in extremely handy during our long drive.
The start of the 101 is awesome; it rivaled the lower Oregon Coast. Chuckanut Drive is hugely popular, and it’s very easy to see why – the scenery is unbelievable. Our new goal is to scoot/ride the Chuckanut because in addition to being fun to say, it is all of the awesome and would be SO FUN on two wheels. After landing in Burlington, we headed west towards Anacortes – we had a ferry to catch!
I’d like to claim I totally did this on purpose so we wouldn’t have to worry about keeping a schedule, but the truth is I just forgot to check the ferry times. As luck would have it, we arrived at the Keystone terminal 2 minutes before they started loading the 1:30 sailing. Unfortunately, without a reservation, we were at the mercy of the cars ahead of us. If we didn’t make the boat, we’d have to wait until the 3pm sailing – no great hardship because we didn’t have anywhere we needed to be and it was gorgeous outside, but it would definitely stop the momentum we had so far.
The cars started loading onto the ferry. As they got down to the last 5 cars, the boarding slowed as they shuffled people to and fro on the tiny, 1-deck boat. The second to last car in lane 5 went, and they stopped. There were three cars left – a giant Hummer in lane 5, the Mazdabator, and a minivan behind us. We all waited with baited breath as word squawked over the radio – there was room for one more. BUT WAIT! The Hummer was too big, so they’d have to skip it and take the next car .. which was US! We were the very last car allowed on the ferry by virtue of being smaller than a Hummer! We giggled our way up the ramp and onto the boat, feeling so very smug about it all. Take that, giant car! Enjoy the 3pm sailing!
Half an hour later, we landed in Port Townsend and continued our trip. We took the US20 south to the 101 towards Port Angeles. The ride was good, but a little boring – this part of the 101 is quiet inland, so there wasn’t much to look at. Besides, I had ulterior motives – we had to get to FORKS.
We pulled into Forks just before 4pm and found a spot to park. Forks is little more than one main street with a few residential offshoots, and most of the Twilight action is on the main drag. If you check the Forks website, there are various places you can go – “Bella’s house” (a random house they decided was close enough to that described in the book), “the Cullen house” (same thing), and .. the hospital, and stuff. Yes, these things are in the book – much like someone mentioned a tree or a bench or a particularly puffy cloud – but they’re not the ACTUAL THING, as SMeyer pulled it all out of her ass while writing. I feel really, really bad for the people who live in those houses, because even though the website says “please be respectful of the people who live there”, if you’re rabid enough to go to Forks to look around, what’s one further act of fandom to peek in a window or take a piece of souvenir siding?
Ed needed to take a nap to recharge his batteries, so I was on my own for Forking it. I took pictures of as many embarrassing outside things as I could, then ventured into the first of the two Dazzled by Twilight stores – there were two, on the same street, three doors apart and next to the Twilight Lounge. The store was small and filed with many, many things – but was NOTHING compared to the Twilight Alpha Base.
The store was huge and crowded with both merchandise and people. As awkward as everything was, I have to give both stores props – they let me take pictures of anything I wanted (and offered to take pictures OF me, to which I couldn’t say “no thank you” quickly or vehemently enough). I was so very Canadian here; I didn’t want to just ASSUME it was okay to take pictures in the store – a lot of places don’t allow it – but thankfully they were totally cool with it. So, I took pictures. A lot of pictures. I tried to take a shot of every single ridiculous product I could find because some were clearly worse than others. I was shocked at the variety of things they slapped a Twilight logo on just to sell random crap, but it’s clearly working – just as I’ll buy pretty much anything if it has Katamari or a scooter on it, people will buy Twilight stuff. Among my quote unquote favorites:
get it?
you really need to read these - click for big
help stop the needless slaughter .. give us money so a fictional character can eat
on the window of the candy shop
every business in forks sells twilight stuff. here you can send packages, get keyless remotes programmed, and buy twilight souvenirs!
my heart belongs to my husband but my neck belongs to edward cullen
Seriously, just look at the rest of the set. There are some gems in there.
After I left the store, I wandered down the rest of Main Street before heading back to the car to wake Ed up. It was too early to stop for the night (and the hotel with the Twilight rooms had no vacancy), so we hit the road again and ended up in Aberdeen for the night. Aberdeen was cool, but I think my favourite was Astoria – there was a fucking Goonies festival going on! I wish we had more time there, but Sunday’s weather was pretty terrible and we both just wanted to get to Portland to relax.
As so we did! We arrived at our hotel last night around 7:30, in the middle of a crazy rain storm. It is very fancy here – there are guys in suits and gloves who insist upon doing things for me, and I keep having to give them money. The location is fantastic though; we’ve been able to walk everywhere and enjoy delicious things. Portland’s food carts are fucking awesome, and I can’t WAIT until we get them in Vancouver (assuming they will be as delicious and plentiful and varied as they are here). Last night we turned to Yelp to help us find somewhere to go, and we ended up at a very ritzy place that we normally wouldn’t be able to afford – except it was Happy Hour, and the menu was insane, with absolutely fantastic food under five frickin’ dollars. Our bill came to $25, and $13 of that were the drinks we had. Ed definitely won the evening with that find, but I’ll get him next time Gadget.
Today was fun. We drove around to the places we (I) wanted to go that weren’t in walking distance, then wandered downtown Portland for a few hours. We went to Powell’s, and once again I want to just live in the basement because it is so fucking awesome in there. We found an Apple store, and it was decided that I will NOT be getting an iPad – I want one, but I don’t WANT one so clearly it can (and should) wait. Tomorrow we’re going to the video arcade, and Stumptown/Voodoo Donuts, and to check out the Rose Festival going on at the waterfront. It should be another fun, full day!
road trip 2010! um, half of it. we have to go home sometime.
