Supermassive Twilight Tour! ....FINALLY!

I suppose that this story really beings with the post about my son and his art, because that's how this whole trip began. It was a moderately rough start that made me question if I would even get to leave Vancouver!!! But like I said before, the rubber met the pavement and we got the hell out of town as fast as humanly possible...although we did have a vampire in tow!!! HELLO EDWARD. So, my friends, as many of you know this is every one's favorite vampire, Edward Cullen. Stephanie won our Edward at her high school graduation party! It was so funny because it wasn't long before her party that we decided to take this trip and then she wins EDWARD? How cool? What I think is the funniest part is that I'm sure there were actual "real" prizes that probably cost quite a bit more, but being "Twilighters", we couldn't have been more excited! After talking to my friend Olivia, who has gone to Forks in search of Edward, she made sure that I knew that Forks doesn't really have very much going on, so you have to make your own fun. We interpreted that as "take your own cardboard cut-out Edward everywhere you go". He has a fun-filled trip that took him to the following Washington cities (and everywhere in between) Camas, Centralia, Port Angeles, Forks, LaPush, Hoh Rain Forest, and every random, small town along the 101.

So here is the beginning, after we left Camas, we drove to Kalama High School. The high school was the outdoor setting of Forks High School in the movie. So Stephanie is showing Edward around the school. There are more photos that I don't have yet because both Stephanie and I were taking pictures and we haven't exchanged photos yet...so these are just my pictures. What is so dumb is that Stephanie took pictures of me and I took pictures of Stephanie....duh. So we both went home with a ton of pictures of each other, but not many of ourselves! If I get something from Stephanie that I just can't resist, I might have to post a Supermassive Twilight Trip II. ...Reel it in Tami....ok, so this is Mr. and Mrs. Cullen. :)

So after we left Kalama High, we continued our adventure north. We were blasting up the 5 and went screamin' through Centralia, WA. As we were blowing past the town on the freeway, we saw all the cool outlet stores on the side of the freeway. But we were driving past them! When you are out in the boonies of Washington, like we were, the exits are far apart and we would have to drive up a few miles to turn around. Did we stop? I'll let you answer that one. We are two chicks, on a road trip, no responsibilities, and maybe some spare cash. You do the math....

So...I got a cute shirt and a hooded, zip-up sweatshirt from Roxy. Stephanie got a few things from there too. We looked in a few other stores without any luck. Let's blow this popsicle stand. Back on the 5.

We make it to Olympia where we are heading west on the 101 and we are excited and waving our arms out of the windows, Twilight music blasting! When the car behind us comes from behind to pass us the sweet, kind, friendly, Washington resident is flipping us off! Listen, we understand that not everyone is having as much fun as we are on a Wednesday afternoon, but is that really necessary? We waved a friendly, genuine wave as she got off the next exit. Welcome to the Olympic Peninsula.

I'm not sure how we managed to only take this picture ONE TIME. We weaved in and out, and in and out AGAIN countless times into the Olympic National Forest. We can only assume that the forest has a very jagged border because we only have one confirmed "lost" moment on this whole trip. But I guess the key word is "confirmed". We must have seen this damn Olympic National Forest sign about 20 times. I'd love to be exaggerating, but I'm not. We think Edward and his vegetarian family hunted these forests so we decided to stop and let Edward get his picture taken. Oh, did I mention that Stephanie bought us matching Edward/Twilight T-shirts? Day 1, matching black t-shirts. Oh yeah, one more thing...the only thing we listened to the ENTIRE trip was the Twilight soundtrack. Which, if you have not heard, you will LOVE it. Stephanie is supposed to be burning me a copy and I don't think I'm going to be able to wait to get it from her. I might buy it....very soon. The best part about it is that the soundtrack is actual songs, there are no scores on that one. I guess there is another CD with the scores on it. Not interested in that one. ...again, reel it in Tami....Alright, this is where the real fun begins....So we are cruisin' the 101 North and we see this huge sign that says something about "Staircase" in the town of Hoodsport. We are looking around seeing this amazing scenery, magnificent mountains, teal calm waters of Hood Canal and thinking, "Yeah, bring on the stairs!" Our thought process was this: Amazing, clean and new scenery + stairs with elevated views = STAIRCASE. We Want To Go To There (30 Rock fans, anyone?) Ok, so we bust a left off the 101. The enormous, brown park sign makes it sound like it's just a hop and a skip from the 101. What they could have mentioned was that it was a hop, skip, jump, turn in two circles, up hill and down a dirt road. Almost immediately after turning off the highway we see a sign that tells us its 16 miles to STAIRCASE. So we look at each other, check out the time (approximately 2pm) and once again decide that we are girls with no responsibilities and no one to tell us what to do. We are finding the stairs and we are climbing them. We are going to a desirable elevation up above all this beauty, snap a few pictures and continue on our way. About 8 miles into our 16 mile adventure the pavement ends. The road is no longer 2 lanes but more of a generous one lane road. Dry, dusty and bumpy. Stephanie now comments that she is glad we are driving my 4 wheel drive, just in case. The scenery is still great and the sun is shining...we aren't complaining...yet. Eight very long, dusty, bumpy and windy miles later we see the ranger station, a fee?? Yes, the STAIRCASE has a fee. As we pull up closer we see that is a hefty $15.00 fee. Maybe I'm too frugal, thrifty, financially conservative or cheap (however you want to look at it), but I'm thinking $15 bucks is kinda spendy for some stairs. Pulling up very slowly to the ranger station, I make the executive decision that if this forest ranger says that this stair hike is the most magical, wonderful and spiritual hike that she's ever experienced...then we are going to be $15 dollars lighter in the wallet.

Tami: Hello Ma'am. How are you?

Ranger: Good thanks.

T: What can you tell me about the staircase? Is the elevation pretty steep, do you get a great view?

R: The elevation isn't too bad, the hikes are relatively easy. It's a series of 4 trails....

T: Wait. Um, so...there's no stairs? Like step up, stair-climber stairs? Just some trails?

R: Yes.

T: Do you mind if I turn around here?

R: No, not at all. Just don't hit my traffic cone on your way out. Have a good day.

T: Bye Ma'am. Thank you for your help.

WHAT THE....Who is in charge of naming this crap? If it's not stairs don't call it stairs. As my Mom would say, "That's false advertising!" False advertising at its finest. Alright, no time to gripe and complain (either in real life or on the blog) we need to get this show on the road. I know based on my GPS that we have driven northwest off the 101. My thinking is this, we have to be further north than where we started so, let's just find a road on the GPS that will take us back to the 101 by just going east. We punch our restaurant destination into the GPS and sure enough, a "shortcut" to the 101. This is where we are introduced to MORE dirt roads which we later identify as logging roads. There is not another soul in site. I think to myself if we break down or something happens to us two things will happen. 1. We will not have cell service, we will be walking our a**es out of this forest just to get help. 2. When we do find help, will we ever find my car again? These are things running through my mind that I decide, as the older adult in the situation, shouldn't let my younger compadre know I'm kinda freakin'. The map eventually shows us this..."Southeast on road". OOOhhhh, I'm going to say that's not good. If the GPS doesn't even know where you are, you are Supermassively screwed. When we finally reach highway 101, I feel like it looks a LOT like where we started. I punch "Hoodsport" into the GPS (because that was the town where our little adventure began) and it says we are NINE FREAKIN' MILES north of Hoodsport. We just drove for 2 hours and got NINE miles up the road. I'm thinking we could have crawled faster. The ONLY exciting part of this drive, well other than wondering if we would make it out alive, was that we saw a WOLF (aka Jacob) cross the logging road RIGHT in front of us! It was so freaky! We were so excited. We got out the binoculars and tried to find him off in the woods without success.

Ok, logging roads driven: check

Driven in 4 wheel drive: check

Met up with the alpha wolf: check

Back on track to have our "first date" dinner: check

MOVE ON.
After a long day of travel we have finally made it to Port Angeles. This is the scariest, most sketchy small town I have EVER been to. There was a man who was very and obviously controlled by many substances who came busting out the side door of a bar onto the sidewalk where we were walking. He came flying out the door (maybe kicked out?) and started yelling at some guys standing there. Stephanie and I walked quickly. We went to a public, outdoor concert on the pier. The band was a geriatric group of people and my favorite instrument was being played by a woman who was wearing a long denim skirt, white boots and a quilted shirt. After a little research online, I have discovered her instrument is called a washtub bass. It's about as country as it gets, and I've been to and lived in some pretty backwoods places in this country...I was sort of impressed. After our square dance through a sea of dogs and very local people, we head up the our FIRST DATE dinner at Bella Italia. It's the restaurant in town that has assumed the role of the Italian restaurant that Edward and Bella go to in Port Angeles. I met the owner while we were waiting. He was very nice and made a good impression for what would turn out to be a not-so-great dinner. Too bad. We declined the mushroom ravioli dinner, that is the Bella special, because it is $5 bucks more than ANYTHING else on the menu. Instead we both decided to get pizzas. Long story short, we waited a hella long time for pizzas that were burned. Better luck next time. On our way out of town we had to stop for gas. We met up with our controlled substance addicted friend at the bus station that was in the gas station parking lot and Stephanie is pretty sure she saw a prostitute walking across the street while I was pumping gas. Port Angeles has personality. I think that's what you say when you are trying to be polite. After a 12 hour day of travel, we arrived in Forks, Washington. We stayed at the Pacific Inn Motel and had this bad a** room. I don't even think I need to comment. This was awesome, awesome, awesome.
Although he is cold, I wasn't lonely! ha ha ha! Edward stood in the corner of the room and watched us both sleep. When I woke up in the morning he scared the CRAP out of me! There is a man standing in our room...oh yes, our vampire man, it's ok now! The next day we hit all the tourist spots in Forks. The weather was awesome. I think it was 83 degrees but the locals thought they'd been shoved into an oven! We saw one woman at Forks Outfitters who was riding in the store-provided Hover-Round and she was wearing jean shorts and her bathing suit.

When we got to Forks Chamber of Commerce there was a free lance writer who stopped us and asked if we would mind talking to her about our trip to Forks. She only assumed we were in Forks for Twilight because we were carrying around a huge cardboard cut out of Edward. We were tough to pick out in a crowd.

The lady is talking to Stephanie while I'm laughing hysterically and taking pictures of this whole thing going down. At the end of the conversation the lady asks Stephanie her name and how old she is. Stephanie says: My name is Stephanie and I'm 18 years old.

The lady then turns to me and says, "What's your name?" I say, "My name is Tami." "And are you 18 also?" After a long pause and much deliberation, I slowly say, "Sure" with a slow nod of my head. Reporter Lady smiles a cautious smile and says, "No? 19? 20?" Finally I put her out of her misery and tell her I'm 22. HA! I'm joking. I tell her I'm 31 and then she just starts looking at me funny and kind of laughing. "I'm totally serious" was my response to her laughter. Well who knows what she believed, only time will tell when the article is printed. I'm supposed to be getting an email for the link when it's printed...oh yeah, I'll blog...don't you worry!

Stephanie, Edward and Tami in front of Bella's truck.Edward at the student parking lot of the real Forks High School.

Stephanie, Edward and Tami at the Treaty Line.

Stephanie, Edward and Tami. I thought these pictures were so cool when I saw a friend had taken them on her trip. What I didn't realize was that this sign is just the backside of the "No Vampires Beyond This Point" sign. Tricky.

LA PUSH! This was so neat. I have been to Washington beaches before, but never one like this. These logs were massive and ALL over the beach. I think Stephanie took some pictures that I will have to post later of us on the biggest log I've ever seen. I can totally see Bella and Jacob hanging out on this beach...although it was beautiful and sunny unlike all the doom and gloom that is in the book. Another funny story about people getting excited about the nice weather: Now, these people couldn't possibly be locals just because I think if locals are going in the ocean they are wearing wetsuits, but people were going in the water! We couldn't believe our eyes! There were two older women who had a cheap, blow up, neon inner tube and they were taking turns putting it around their waists and going into the waves that were breaking. There were mothers allowing their children to do the same. Crazy stuff. That water is freezing and let's be honest, it wasn't that warm! These people are in the ocean and we are on the shore wearing shorts and hooded sweatshirts. La Push at First Beach. Around 2pm we leave the La Push and Forks area and start making our way south on the 101, headed for home. The 101 is a beautiful drive that winds along the cliffs of the Washington coast. It's amazing scenery because the forest stops right where the beach sands begin. I haven't seen another coastline quite like that before. I think Washington and Oregon are unique like that, but maybe I just haven't seen enough in the world yet to know any differently. Either way, I'm impressed. After driving past several pull-outs for beach access we finally stop at this beach, which is creatively named "Forth Beach". Notice the biggest rock down on the beach, we climbed it! Stephanie had never seen tide pools before so she was excited to see this sea life in the wild.

We had so much fun at this beach and I think we ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours there! We are going to be getting home late!

I realized on this trip what a sucker I am for signs that tell you to go see stuff. I called it something different on our trip and I'm not sure it's appropriate for my PG rated blog, but here it goes. You know, like when people say they are a "shoe whore", well I have that problem but with sightseeing things. For example, we are driving down the road and I see a sign that says "stairs", well I gotta see 'em. Here, I saw a sign that said "Big Cedar Tree". I can't possibly pass that up! So here we are at Big Cedar Tree. Now this is a huge, freakin' tree! It wasn't a tall tree, but that's OK because they didn't advertise it as a "big, tall cedar tree". No false advertising here! Later on our drive we saw another sign about another big tree, but Stephanie was my support group for W.F.N. (whores for nature).

I have not included our 14 mile detour to see the Hoh Rain Forest that ended in another ranger station with another $15.00 park fee and another U-turn. I have also not mentioned our phone call to a ranch trying to figure out if we could take a horseback ride in the rain forest or the rediculous wait and poor dining experience at Burgerville in Centralia on our way home. So as you can see, we did more than we ever expected. If I had known that there was so much to do on the Olympic Pennisula, I would have planned our trip for more than 2 days. We had a blast in Forks and La Push, not so much in Port Angeles, but it was all worth it. I would highly recommend this trip. But what I thought was crazy was all the people who had driven and flown from so far away just to experience Forks and the Twilight Zone! We met a lady from South Carolina, a family who was on a group road trip from Colorado, we had a not-so-pleasant photo experience with a old guy from Wyoming and we saw cars from all over the country. Nuts. I mean it was fun and I'm glad we did it, but I'm also very glad that we only drove 4.5 hours to do it! We packed so much into those 2 days that I dropped Stephanie off at 11pm and I got home at midnight!

Stephanie, thanks so much for all the fun. I had a great time and I hope you did too. Can't wait to see your photos! Let me know when you want to do our movie tour of Oregon! We might have kids in tow, but we will make it work.

I hope you have enjoyed the stories and I also hope the wait was worth it. Oh, and one more thing, I couldn't wait for Stephanie any longer...I bought the Twilight soundtrack!