Exploring

Friday dawned perfectly foggy. We looked outside our back window and you could see the school's parking lot covered with it. We half expected to see a silver Volvo pulling into the lot. To say it was like walking out of the book sounds so cliche, but it did. Naturally this was the time that my camera stopped working, so from here on out, I'll have to use pictures borrowed from friends.
First on the agenda for Friday was a group picture in front of the Welcome to Forks sign. This was everyone's 'must do' item. So, here we are:

After that we headed over to the visitors center, where they have embraced us Twilight crazies. You would not believe the mail they get for Bella and Edward. The week after we were there, they were even getting a replica of Bella's truck to have parked in front for people to take pictures with. They've gone so far as to pick out a house they think would be the Swan's and the owners have even put up a sign. (The one they picked for the Cullen's was a joke, but we didn't want to tell them that.) After that we went and explored the town, and that didn't take long. The book describes it pretty much the way it is. The Thriftway, The Outfitters, (these are actually connected), the hospital, the one main strip with a single stoplight. Forks has even given Carlisle his own parking spot, as modeled by the lovely Jamie.

(Blogger isn't letting me post anymore photos, so I'll make a slide show of the rest of the day's adventures.)

Next we headed to Rialto Beach, to hike to the tide pools. The beaches in Washington aren't the bury-your-feet-in-the-sand beaches I grew up with in CA. These are extremely rocky and cold beaches. It was a long 1.5 miles each way, but so worth it. I don't get the chance to see many starfish and anemanies living here in Utah. We ate lunch next to the tide pools and then headed back. Poor Emily, six months pregnant and such a trooper. She did wonderfully. I think I would have keeled over if I'd tried that while pregnant.

Our car decided to drive over to La Push and explore the reservation a bit. We even found a few houses that could have been the Black's, wheelchair ramp and all. There is a nice resort right on the water, I think it would be fun to stay there.

We got to go check into our nice hotel that afternoon. We spent a few hours unwinding and then headed to our big get-together with our friends from across the country. The ladies that planned the evening worked so hard and it looked beautiful. We ate dinner, played a fun survival game, only using the contents in our purse, and ate and laughed and ate and talked and ate some more. It was a fabulous evening.