Our Trip to Forks. Wa.
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Well Hi girls,
6-7-08 .
Ok well the flight was good. Ashley was pretty freaked out but thats what she does. After the take off she settled right in. We flew over the grand canyon so she took some pictures. Niether of us had ever seen it. It was beautiful. Farther into the flight she we saw some huge mountains with snow on them so she got pictures of them as well. The flight its self was great with sunny skys and clear air. Until we started to land in Seattle. then we entered gray skys and rain. Ok for us we like rain. the tempurature was 50 again not a problem. Ashley was funny to watch because it was Cold. Of course my standard answer of its 104 at home, want to go back? didnt please her. We got our car which cost us another $200+ on top of the $200+ that I already paid. Suddenly there was a security deposit that I knew nothing about. and i prepaid for a tank of gas refill so I wouldnt have to worry when I got back next week. I also had to pay for our room so that was $455.00. So this leaves us with the maybe $40 left in my purse. FOR THE WHOLE TRIP.. Dave gets paid on Thursday so we will get some from his acct and I will be paid on Friday. We will have tourist shop on Friday. Problem is that is my mortgage money. This didn't go as I planned at all.
Back to the trip up. Well the highways are not very clearly marked and they are confussing with exits on both left and right lanes for differnt places. I will say I went to far and ended up turning around and coming back. Ashley is a great map reader now. Thats a big help since I am driving. We drove by the space needle. Its packed in the middle of the congestion so we did not attempt to go there. We found our way to the ferries, again not quite as clearly marked as I would hope but we did alright. We had to drive by an area that was very run down and Getto as Ashley called it. We saw groups of homeless people sleeping on the sides of the roads. We were shocked. Nieve as we are it never occured to us there would be so many.
The ferry was cool. we were the first on and off. Bainbridge Island was beautiful. We both decided if we were to ever move it would be to there. This was so easy to drive. Port angeles was so small we expected it to be huge. They were having a marrathon so it was busy. as we were getting ready to take the turn to Forks Ashley saw a massive freighter ship. So I turned down to the docks and let her play tourist. She took pictures of that and a seagull. there were lots of them but the stupid things wouldnt stand still for a picture. Dumb rats with wings. So back we went to Forks. I am so dumb I figured it would be a boring ride through the woods. Was I ever wrong. It was so scenic. Two lane highway winding through the wood in between the mountains. The sun shined again by this time 3 + hours into our trip. Unfortunately as we drove past them I saw several water falls but with traffic behind and no pull off areas I could not get pictures. I will be prepared on the way back. I will tell you about the best place on the trip so far. Lake Cresent. surrounded my mountains it was perfect. I have never seen water so blue ever and I lived on a lake for years. the color was touquise and so appealing it seemed to draw you too it. This was water that I would not have thought twice about drinking. The water was choppy and rough and I would have been happy to just camp right there. So of course we moved on. when we arrived in Forks we lets just say Murphy rejoined our trip. We took our picture of the town sign. Ashley didnt want to stand by it because she only had on flip flops and a shirt and I had terrized her with stories of poison ivy on the way up. Hey I had to have some fun. She kept playing I told you so about my getting lost. she was right I admitted that to her but she likes to mess with her mom.
Any way back to the trip. Now in all honesty, I would say we may have been a little biased by this point. each of us only had 3 hours of sleep the night before. so we have been up a long time, I have had to many suprises that killed all our money so when we drove into town well the bubble burst.
The town is small and rundown look looking. We found the motel took up our stuff. I had to call Dave to let him know we were here and surprise you cannot make collect calls or credit card calls from our room. Ok so we will just find a pay phone. Yeah. Well we managed to find one and we couldn’t call collect of it or credit card, so we went into the local on the run store and buy a calling card. Still the pay phone wouldn’t work so we went to the restaurant got something to eat and came back her. Dave was sleeping so we didn’t talk more then 2 minutes. I was fighting with the computer by this time sent out a couple of my space notes and then crashed at 7 pm.
Ashley was back up at 11 so I turned on the computer for her and fell back asleep and got up at 6. I am even drinking coffee which I never do.
So now here we sit in our room its cloudy outside and looks like its misting. We are staying almost across the street from the high school Oh yeah last night was graduation so Sully Burgers and several other places were closed. Go figure.
Today I think we will be resting a lot. If I can get the computer working better I will send pictures if not Ashley can post them on myspace.
DAY 2 SUNDAY 7-8-08
Well today was good. We walked around town 1st to the high school. We took pictures and enjoyed the beautiful flowers. I needed to get a leaf for my co worker Devon . She introduced me to Twilight. She gave me a small list of things she would like us to bring back. A leaf, sand, rock & drift wood. Well let me enlighten you about an interesting but important fact. If you go to La Push beaches DO NOT TAKE THE SAND. They have very strict customs. It was explained to me by a wonderful lady. She explained that you do not want to be caught taking from the beaches or you would get a ticket. She said you cannot simply pay the ticket either you are required to come to court when ever they schedule it. Then she explained it simply as if everyone came up and took something from the beach it would ruin the beach. I understood that. Didn’t listen fully but understood. I will go into more of that latter.
Now back to our morning. As we walked around town on Sunday morning it wasn’t quite as empty as I would expect. I didn’t see anyone in the church we passed but there was someone in the office in the high school. Apparently the senior graduated on Saturday 7-7-08 and they are done now but everyone else still has school. The only thing we did notice about the people here is they are all pale. They seem friendly enough but strikingly pale.
We wandered by the bus station and then back around toward our hotel. We found a great fruit stand J&B’s fresh produce. I was terrified to walk in because of the prices in the Thriftway. As I wandered through I noticed the prices weren’t as high. Then as I looked on a table I found Gluten Free mixes. I was in love. Didn’t buy anything of course not like I can back in a microwave. Ashley got some fruit and I got some carrots as a snack. The lady at the cash register was so sweet. She talked with us for awhile and even offer Ashley some cherry’s at no charge since Ash had talked herself out of buying them. She said she lived in Forks for 30 years (she didn’t even look that old) She said it was hard living there. Lack of sun and the fact that it was so far to travel to anything. We are smack in the middle of nowhere. Everything has to be delivered in and its limited.
So we headed to the motel Ashley put our stuff upstairs and then we drove to the chamber of commerce. We didn’t expect anyone to be there. We were wrong. I did my typical picture of Ashley but the I love Edward sign in the window. When we entered we were immediately greeted by a women who asked ”Do you love Edward”. Of course Ashley chimed in with yes. Her name is K. Anita Wheeler and she is a volunteer and she also makes Twilight inspired jewelry. She introduced herself as Anita, a genuine Quileute Werewolf. She took our pictures holding the Vampires thrive in Forks sign for them to add to the web page. She gave us each an envelope that she put together. It was Twilight based info. Maps and a small bag of sand. She explained that The Quileute Tribe has traditions and beliefs. They don’t want people taking from the beaches. She went as far as to tell us they will ticket you and you cannot just get away with mailing in the fee. You are required to be at court in person. Then she explained if everyone came and took from the beaches it would ruin the beaches. She had a point. So she got permission from the Tribe to put some sand in her packets. Thank goodness there is no curse attached to taking it or I would have refused. I am very superstitious about that stuff. She asked if we were able to go on the Twilight Tour the day before. I told her we flew in too late and were leaving before the next one. I said we were actually hoping to get the route mapped so we could do it ourselves. She was so excited. She took us herself. I drove and she just directed me around. She showed us the School and the police station, the hospital, which they are trying to get a parking place designated for Dr. Cullen. As of this date no such agreement has been made. Then she showed me to where the best possible houses for the Swan’s and Cullen’s were I took pictures. She did tell me there is a much better Cullen candidate but she said the people who own it do not want tourist snapping pictures or bothering them. Its funny I would have thought there would have been more positive response from the books. You know small town gets a great tourist opportunity and many people here don’t like it. Anita says she has a lot of resistance from the other Chamber of Commerce volunteers. She puts out ideas to make the Twilighter’s experience better and unless she does it herself they don’t want it. That’s sad but it explains the tone of the email I received about the tours. Oh well I found Anita and she did something so special for us. Ashley was thrilled.
Anita makes jewelry too. Nothing expensive mind you but everything she makes has a lot of thought and reason behind it. She also tells stories. She told us about her grandfather was one of the last whalers, how they paddled out in a canoe with 8 men and just went on from there. It was fascinating. She will be in La Push on Wednesday evening for the drumming. I cannot wait to see her again.
After our tour it was still very early so Ashley asked to go out to La Push. We drove out this was much more of what we were expecting. Areas of thick trees almost covering the two lane road. They do tons of logging but unfortunately they have never cleaned up the areas in La Push so you have huge stripped areas with ugly rotting tree stumps. Its very unattractive. Well we came across the Quileute schools and we saw signs for 2nd beach and 3rd beach but no 1st beach. To get to 3rd beach you have to go thru the woods. We didn’t go we drove all the way down and parked and walked around and took pictures. Apparently it was low tide. I will try to get more pictures on Wednesday . We drove to Rialto beach. It is set up more for tourists. They have bathrooms and picnic areas. They also have a nice handicapped ramp set up to take wheelchairs up. They have moved some drift wood aside to make the beach accessible to us klutz’s This was beautiful. Smelling the salt water and hearing the waves made me so relaxed. Ashley was so cute. She was seeing it all for the 1st time. What’s this, look at that. I have not smiled so much in years. She was so determined to find shells she didn’t realize she had gotten so close to the water. Well as fate would have it the ocean decided to introduce itself you her. I wish I had gotten my camera out in time to tape it. I yelled but to late apparently because she got soaked above her ankle and of course splashed. She smiled at me said I did it on purpose and then said it wasn’t all that cold. She kept right on search and surprisingly we didn’t see shells. Lots of pebbles and rocks but no shells and some sand but it was black. She got a kick out of this too. I put her up on drift wood to show how tiny she is. Actually to show how large they are.
I was so tired when we got back but I felt good. We relaxed for a few hours and then went across the street to a small restaurant for dinner. Man I have to say the restaurants are not good. True I am spoiled but really the food it expensive and well its ok and the service well its very laid back. Ok enough negative. We have decided that the On The Run gas station is actually better and cheaper. There is not a single fast food restaurant here. They have 3 Chinese restaurants . Go figure.
Anyway Ashley and I shared a steak and salad it was perfect for us. We came back and chilled for the night. Ashley made me watch Stand By Me which I have never seen. Ok check that off my list.
She was cold last night and our heater didn’t want to work I gave her the extra blanket but she put it under her pillow and during the night put on my big green sweater. She is going to be cold today its raining so I think I will go up to the Thrift way and buy her a sweat shirt. I was going to wait but with her asthma I cannot take the chance.
Well today she wants to go to the rain forest. Good thing she brought 2 pairs of sneaker her converse are still wet.
I will try to write more later.
Monday June 9, 2008
oh correction the name of the produce market was J & P Produce. My apologies to the wonderful owners.
Well we had a lot of rain today. We had a great breakfast bought Ashley her Forks High Spartans sweat shirt and T-shirt. It was so cold and damp she needed it. I bought a t-shirt for me too, It says Love At First Bit Forks WA.
Then we went over to the Chamber of Commerce again. We met up with Anita again and she quietly told us to go by the "Cullen" house again. The name "Cullen" is on the mail box. Then she sent me a note to let me know that I needed to go to the front door and read the note. I was too nervous to do that today so I will have to go tomorrow. Yeah more pictures.
Well I was really feeling unwell by now. So I asked Ashley to go back to the room. She was not pleased. After a few hours I felt better and obviously the rain was not going to let up so I asked her if she wanted to go to Port Angeles. Surprisingly she wanted to go. So off we went, 57 miles one way to Port Angeles.
We wanted to try to get pictures of the waterfalls that we missed on the way into town. Well we really saw something we didn’t expect. On the side of the road we saw a doe. Just standing there. Now this was a 2 land highway and very winding at that. No one was behind us so I backed up and we opened the window. We were no more the 5 feet from her and Ashley turned on the movie. As she started filming a huge logging truck, fully loaded, came flying around the corner. If I had the car in drive I would have been ok, but I had left the car in reverse. I panicked. Thank goodness for good pickup. Of course then I realized that Ashley left the camera on. It took a little while to calm down.
When we got there the sun was shining and I got so excited I parked and pulled out the camera and started to site see. Well Murphy came with us because it began to rain. No not just rain down pour. So much for doing my hair up nicely.
I did manage to take pictures of the Book store Bella passed up. I have pictures in my photo album in My Space please look a them. I could see how going around the area in the dark might be frightening for Bella down on the water front.
Well we went to Bella Italia for dinner. It is a small pretty place. Surprise # 2 they have added Mushroom Ravioli on the menu. Ashley ordered this and I had chicken parmesan. I have to tell you this was the best Italian food I have ever had. I had to ask the owner how she prepared the zucchini for my meal. I loved it. I usually do not get excited about food. Food is not my friend.
We spoke with the waitress for awhile about the response they have had since Twilight. She said the producers of the movie asked to film there but then pulled out at the last minute. Its really too bad . She did say that some filming was done in Port Angeles but no one knew exactly where. They love the publicity that the book brought in. They keep a copy of Twilight right at the front counter. She also said that the response from the town of Forks was surprising. Its an old logging town and people don’t want the tourists to come in and ruin it. I guess I can understand that. On the ride back it was uneventful. We got a couple of shots of the water falls and Ashley was fascinated by the clouds on the mountains. She took almost all of the pictures. So here we sit. Oh yeah it was still light out side at 930 pm not bright but not dark. I guess Twilight is long here in Forks. I forget I am not in Arizona anymore. I am kinda beat so I will close for now. I do not expect much tomorrow. I have laundry to do and Ashley agreed to give me a break. I am hurting so bad but I just cannot stand to see her disappointed. This trip is so important to her but just as much to me. I missed out on this chance with my mom. She died at 54 from Multiple Sclerosis side effects. I had the time I took care of her but it was not enough. I don’t want Ashley to feel like that.
Nite now.
Tuesday 6-10-08
Well today started out with no plans. Laundry was my concern. With all the rain and the fact that the heater didn’t work in our room we were sleeping in our sweaters. Until last night when my incredible intelligent daughter suggested we sleep in between the two blankets instead of underneath. We had a warm night even with my wet hair. She actually slept in a little. So we went for our French toast and bacon at the Forks Coffee Shop and then wandered the town. I had to get change for laundry so we just walked up to the Chinook Pharmacy. They has many different things. The Twilight shirts there said My Last Twilight was in Forks, WA. I didn’t get any of those. We picked up a card for Anita who send me a note on my space this morning asking if we had nothing planned for today if we would like a tour of La Push and to hear some of her stories. Like we could say no. What a wonderful woman to not only share her history, but to take time out of her day to share with us. Two strangers. Her link is on my friend’s list on my space TWILIGHTATLAPUSH.COM is her email. We picked out the jewelry pieces we wanted that she made. I selected a bracelet with a crystal heat and the wolf head but not the one that Jacob carved. it’s the actual symbol that the Quileute Tribe uses. Ashley has selected the baseball and bat necklace that she calls THUNDER BALL that represents the baseball game. She is also looking at some others that she liked. They are not the fancy stuff you see on the other websites. Each piece was designed with a story or meaning behind it. That is what I wanted something that tells a tale. Unique from our trip. We were so captivated by her stories that she told I told her she should consider giving tours. She is a wonderful story teller and the fact that they have been handed down thru her family members makes it all the more special. I know I am rambling but I wish I could share them with you. I am just no good at relaying some info. I love to hear them but she feels them and as she tells you so do you. She mentioned that she might have them put on to recordings. I would buy them. She told us one that would give you chills not about the “Cold Ones” but says the Elders used to speak of the Others with Red Eyes and how it was forbidden to go out at Twilight to Dawn that it wasn’t safe and the ones with red eyes would get you.
She told us about the Giants that once lived in the La Push area, and about 1st beach where when people died long ago that they would set the person afloat from there and set the boat afire. Then the bones that remained were gathered back and laid to rest in the burial grounds. And that for 3 days from the day of passing you were not to speak or think of the person to allow the spirit to gather up its footprints. For one year you didn’t speak the persons name to allow the spirit to move to the next place. All of the persons belongings were gathered, set afloat and burned so they too would journey with the spirit. Pictures were turned downwards also for this time. The family members would cut their hair to chin length to show their mourning. I truly cannot tell you all that she shared.
I would love if you could all send her a friend’s request. Show her support for truly caring. We all know that without encouragement none of us have any confidence in what we do. How much do you look forward to your reviews. It lightens you heart, makes you feel all your hard work is really meaning something. And wouldn’t it be nice to say I knew her, I was her first tour. Well I can say that but when I find something good I share with all my girls.
So now here I sit on Tuesday evening, writing to my friends. I am lonely believe it or not. I miss the email soap operas and reading the stories. I haven’t been able to get the regular email to work reliably and thank goodness for my space. This is the only way to share pictures with you all. My other friends that do not have my space do not get to see them till I get home.
Ashley wants to edit these notes and then print them for her scrap book. Which by the way is turning into a scrap trunk at this point. She is keeping every receipt and flyer.
Oh great news by the way The Cullen house owners its actually a bed and breakfast that I at the moment cannot remember the name of, have not only put the Name on the mail box but have the books on display on there upright piano and a sign that they hang by the door. Look at my pictures on my space to see it. They are getting into the spirit and have agreed along with the owners of Bella’s house to allow then to be part of the tours. They say the people are very friendly. That is the spirit I was hoping for. Maybe in some small way we had something to do with it.
Well for now I think I should wake the baby and feed her. Maybe tonight we will go to Sully Burgers and get Ashley the Bella Burger.
I will chat back tomorrow ladies. Please write me. Its lonely without you all.
Goodnight Liz
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