Day 3, Tuesday, July 21: The day started out pretty uneventful, but slowly got a little stressful. We got up fairly early, drove down to the ferry in Coupeville and headed off to the Olympic Peninsula. Its recommended that we get reservations for this ferry, because its a small one, but we decided to take our chances and see if we can get on standby. While checking for reservations the night before we figured out that there were no reservations left, BUT they don't reserve the entire ferry, so there are always standby spots available. We just needed to get there early enough to get a standby spot. So on this day, we had no problem getting on the ferry. I think there were only about 15 cars there, if there were even that many. We were excited about not having to stress about getting on the ferry so we enjoyed the short ride to Port Townsend and then hopped off the ferry to drive to the Olympic National Park. One thing I didn't know about the Olympic Peninsula until I moved here, is that its very unpopulated. From Port Townsend, there is really only 1 main road that will take you down the entire Peninsula. The key is getting on that road in the first place.
We missed the initial exit to get on the road, but thats not a big deal because there are 1 or 2 other places where you can get onto the road. Of course, since we missed that first exit, we managed to get ourselves stuck in construction traffic - the kind where only one lane is open and you have to be led by a lead truck to drive through. Construction is annoying enough on its own, but apparently, in a place where there is only one road, that means that EVERYONE is on this road. My phone has a GPS on it, so I turned it on to see if there were any alternate routes. We discovered then, that it is possible to get very angry at a GPS. We were stuck in one lane construction traffic, and the GPS kept saying "Make the next legal U-turn". Well thats fine. But we couldn't U-Turn because the lanes were only going in one direction thanks to this traffic! Then, at one point the GPS told us to turn left onto a road. We passed that road accidentally, and when we finally did manage to make a U-turn, the GPS was still telling us to turn left, which at this point should have been a right. So after about an hour of yelling at the GPS and cursing the traffic, we finally got ourselves on the right road and headed into Port Angeles for lunch.
This is where the Twilight insanity starts. Since Port Angeles is where Bella and Edward had their first date, it only seems right that a local restaurant called Bella Italia, claimed themselves as the place of their first date. It doesn't matter that this restaurant existed before Twilight. It is now the official home of Bella and Edward's first date. Its only open for dinner hours though, so since it was lunch time we just got to look at it and take pictures, like good Twilight tourists. We were also amused by a sign that said "Unattended children will go to the Volturi" in one of the local stores. If you're a Twilight fan, you'll probably find that funny. If you're not a Twilight fan, then you'll have no clue what that means, so you should take my suggestion and go read the book!
We ate lunch at a small local restaurant in Port Angeles, then we hung out with the locals for a bit:
Then we continued on our trek to Olympic National Park. If you read my post from several months ago about National Parks, you'll know that I'm not a huge fan of National Parks that are nothing but nature. They are beautiful, yes, but the kind of National Park I enjoy the most are the Civil War battlefields that don't exist out here on the West Coast. But with that being said, I LOVE the Olympic National Park. Its one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The entire park sits on the edge of a rainforest (The Hoh Rainforest is actually part of the park, but we didn't make it that far. I don't think the entire park is part of the rainforest but I could be wrong) and its filled with cascading waterfalls and beautiful crystal clear blue lakes. We hiked up to Marymere Falls first. Then afterward, we sat on a dock by the edge of a lake, and just relaxed. We picked a beautiful day to visit the area. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, which is pretty unusual for this area. I'm not sure how long we sat there and relaxed but eventually we had to get up and leave, and start making our way back to Port Townsend to hop back on the ferry (we did manage to get reservations for the return trip).
Back in Port Townsend, we ate dinner in a tiny little restaurant in the historic downtown. Port Townsend is a beautiful, historic town that I am definitely going to have to check out one day. We had to make the ferry, so we only had time for dinner, and no exploring.
Day 4, Wednesday, July 22: On this day we headed right back to where we were the day before - the Olympic Peninsula. This time our goal was to visit Forks and La Push to see the crazy Twilight tourism stops in both places, and to see the Pacific Ocean in La Push. This was Alice's first time visiting the West Coast, so seeing the Pacific Ocean was a must! We got a later start than we did the day before. Again, we didn't have reservations on the ferry, but we thought it would be easy to get on, since it was so easy the day before. This time it wasn't. We got VERY lucky. On Tuesday, I guess no one wanted to ride the ferry to Port Townsend. On Wednesday, lots of people did. We were the very last car that they let on for stand by. Talk about good luck! We avoided the construction traffic this time by taking the first exit to get on the road we needed to be on, and made excellent time to Forks. It should take about 3 hours, but it took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and I swear we weren't even speeding, so our day was off to a good start! We got to Forks around lunch time and ate at the Forks Coffee Shop, which isn't really a coffee shop, its an old school diner. But they had good food and we were hungry, so we enjoyed ourselves a nice relaxing lunch. We ended up at the Forks visitor center where we were presented with a Twilight tour packet. The packet consists of an official Twilight map (to see places like Bella's house and Forks High School), plus a Twilight quiz, plus a list of restaurants with Twilight themed food (who doesn't want to eat a Bella Burger?)
Oddly enough, the entire time Alice was here visiting, the sun was out and it was abnormally hot by Washington standards. Forks, however, was different. Forks is the wettest place in the continental United States (which is why Stephanie Meyer set Twilight there), and this proved true on the day we were there. Dreary gray skies, cold temperatures, and misty rain made it feel like summer had disappeared on our short trip away from Whidbey. But since we were in the wettest place in the United States, I thought it was quite appropriate, especially since the last time I visited Forks, it was bright and sunny and not at all what I was expecting.
So we did a quick tour of the Twilight stops. We saw Bella's house (which some random family lives in, and claimed as Bella's house), the Cullen house (a bed and breakfast that keeps a message board up so visitors can know what the Cullen's are doing that day), a local drug store that sold souvenirs and had a sign out front saying it was Bella's First Aid station (since Bella is clumsy and always getting hurt, of course), and a few other random places. Then we were off to La Push, where it was equally as gray, cold, cloudy and rainy. La Push is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, and I have to admit that even in the fog it was still pretty neat looking. However, I was disappointed that Alice and Carol didn't get to see the full effect of the place. Out in the ocean are these huge rock structures that just sit out there, but the fog was so thick that they were impossible to see. However, off to the side of the beach, in a little bay were some of these formations, so they saw those, but thats not the same in my mind.
(Local Forks Pharmacy)
(The daily update about the Cullens)
(The border of the Quileute Indian Reservation, where as any good Twilight fan knows, vampires are not allowed to go)
(freezing on the beach in La Push)
(I think this is my favorite picture of Alice from the whole trip. She really wanted to touch the Pacific Ocean, however, the ocean didn't understand that she wanted to do this on her own terms. So after several really small waves came by, this giant wave crashed onto shore, soaking Alice in the process. She was freezing, but she DID get to put her feet in the Pacific Ocean!)
(Twilight graffiti on the driftwood on the beach)
(I didn't write this, but I thought it was funny, so of course I took a picture)
(foggy La Push)
(beautiful, foggy, La Push)
(More fog in La Push)
(We stopped at this coffee stand on the way out of town, and we thought it was funny that even the local coffee places have made themselves part of the Twilight insanity.)And that concludes days 3 and 4. Hopefully my update on days 5 and 6 will be posted faster than this one was!
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