The Trip to Vampire/Werewolf Country

We made it safely back from Forks and LaPush!  Nobody was bitten!

Sunset at La Push.

Just to recap, we left Portland around noon on Friday.  Drove through Forks, since we were staying in La Push, and arrived at the beach around 5ish.  Checked into the hotel, ran around like lunatics on the beach, looked for somewhere to eat in La Push and ended up driving back to Forks for dinner.

Same view, in the morning.  Right off our balcony.

On Saturday we spent a couple of hours checking out all of the Twilight locations.  The rest of the day was spent shopping for Twilight crap.  Oh, jeez!  We’ve got t-shirts and coffee cups, and dog tags, and shorts, and pens, and shot glasses, and, and, and…  What can I say?  It was fun and we were supporting the local economy.

Here's a picture of the niece having a pretty awesome time!

Saturday night we had a wonderful bonfire on the beach.  The rain held off until we had burned both bundles of firewood and a stack of driftwood.  By then it was approaching midnight so we didn’t mind.

We collected too many pounds of beautiful rocks and spectacular chunks of wave sculpted wood.  The hotel was great; a two bedroom suite with a big deck and the only thing between us and the surf was driftwood.  There is some massive driftwood in Northern Washington! 

 Yeah, that's me standing on the root end of this log.  Amazing!  Here are some pix from the other end:

That's Zoe.  And here's one of me:

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.  We all had a fantastic time, everyone got along splendidly.  When we got home, all the pets were in fine fettle (ok, the cats were mad for a little while, but that’s to be expected.)

Here's a picture of my adorable gf, in her senior portrait pose...  :-)

She's pretty darned cute!

I would definitely recommend this trip to any Twilight fan.  We had a wonderful time!  We do have some suggestions for the Forks chamber of commerce, though.  They could be doing so much more!

And, last but not least, here's a picture of what it looks like to be riding on the back of your favorite mythical creature:

They go fast!

I'm still here!

Dear Blog Friends,

I’ve been neglecting you.  I’m sorry!  It’s not that I don’t think of you, I do, and frequently.  It’s just that for the past month or so everything that came out of these fingertips was so negative that I grew weary with myself.  I chose not to bore you with my whining.  And, what did that leave me with?  Right.  Not a lot.  I’m working on that.  Working on having a better attitude, on finding some good in what I do, on seeing that damned glass as half full (or completely full!), you know, trying to put a little positive energy into my life.  So, I’ll keep working on that, but in the meantime I do have something fun to report.

On Thursday night my daughter arrives in town.  Yay!  That’s always good.  On Friday at noon we are heading out for an adventure.  Yay!

Me, T, Zoe and Angela are going on a weekend trip to Forks, Washington.  It’s the home of the vampires from the Twilight books and movies.  Personally, I don’t give a hoot about the damn books or movies, but our girls are excited about it and it’s just fun to get away.  We are going to stop at all of the marked destinations and take plenty of photographs.  We will be staying in La Push, home of the werewolves, mostly because the hotels (both of them) in Forks didn’t look all that great.  Also, this way we get a beach weekend out of the trip too!  Bonus!

Of course, a beach weekend is wonderful but we are just the tiniest bit worried about more tsunami action and radioactive fallout.  But, hell, what’s the sense in worrying?  We’ll be breathing the fallout regardless and if there’s another tsunami, well, at least we’ll be in the front row.  All kidding aside, I think it’s safe.  (And, please don't think I am being insensitive about Japan.  I have been in touch with my Japanese friends and have sent the most needed thing - money.)

So, next week I may even be able to post some pictures of us having fun.  About time!