Summary

My trip was wrought with spiritual and emotional cleansing. I feel like I am ready to begin the next journey of my life. I do not know if I will ever travel to the Pacific Northwestagain but I do have hope.

I was impressed by how many people are still surviving in the areas I visited. Due to the housing market and out economy the income level is very low but people have managed to seek out a living in the place their grandparents and great grandparents still inhabited. Forks could be seen as a dismal town with very little room for growth but people who think that would be wrong. Forks is on an upward curve thanks in part to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series. According to Travis, my tour guide for a three hour trip, since Twilight the movie came out the town averages several hundred to several thousand visitors a weeks depending on the time of year. Forks is very close to the Quilete Reservation and the Hoh Rainforest as well as different part of the Olympic National Park allowing a traveler to go from a snow covered peak to a beach to a rainforest is a day if the traveler wishes.

The epicenter of Forks seems to be the Forks Coffee Shop. The restaurant serves big portions of delicious food for low prices. While sitting in the restaurant people watching you notice that with the exception of the Twilighters the patrons all know and care about one another. Waitresses are honest when you accidentally tip them twice and they all sit at a table enjoying their meal while you are too. Not that the service is not great, it definitely is. Our waitress made us feel like we were not tourists there for a story but instead we became a part of the Forks culture for that one brief moment.

There were many instances where we were made to feel that we belonged in Forks. The Forks townspeople would all say a quick “Hello” and held the door for you, even if it meant that they would get wet, which with 12 feet of rain a year that is a definite possibility. Ron at the Forks Chamber of Commerce was there when we stopped in (every day) and he always seemed to have something new to show or tell us. Going to the grocery store and Forks Outfitters was like meeting old friends. We chatted with the ladies in Forks Outfitters about everything from kids, to mothers in laws and our husbands to what was going on around Forks and if Twilight was helping the economy.

The economy of Twilight is not helping the town of very much. As a matter of fact it seems the only one really making money is a Twilight fan that moved to Forks from Vancouver and set up shop. The owner of Bedazzled by Twilight now has three properties on Forks Main Street, one is a store, one is a Twilight tour company and one is the new Twilight Lounge. The residents of Forks that I talked to were not happy that someone came in from the outside and opened up shop. After going in to check in for the tour I can see why the residents of Forks do not like the owner. She was not very pleasant at all to deal with and I reason that if she treats customers bad she must treat others bad as well.

The positives that came out of my trip…. I lost a friend because she became my sister…. I cleared my conscious so I can start the next part of my life….. I accomplished and saw things I never thought I would…. Above all else I think I found a part of myself that I thought I lost….