The Pentons

A while back when Craig and I first got here to Washington, I was looking at a Washington tourist magazine and I came across a list of the top 50 sights to see in Washington. Included in this list was a trip to the Olympic Penninsula, and looking at the pictures I understood why it was on their list. So Craig and I decided to go to the Olympic Penninsula for my birthday. Through further study, I found out that the cities of Forks, and La Push were located on the Olympic Penninsula. For all those out there who have read the Twilight series, you will understand that the books took place in these towns. When I read the books, I had no idea that these were actual places, and I was thrilled to find out that they actually existed. So my birthday weekend rolls around, we load up the car and head out. After being in the car for four hours (although it was a scenic four hours) we got to Forks, where we had rented a hotel room. At first glance of Forks I was rather disappointed. It was a small town (which I expected) but it was kinda run down and on the weekend there was just a bunch of drunk people hanging around on the streets. So right away we wanted to go to the beach, so we took the La push road right down to the beach. There were quite a few beaches and they were all numbered so on our first day there, we went to first beach. It was Craigs first time on the beach in about 15 years, and my first time in about 5 so we were excited to see the waves, sand and seashells. We went into the water though just to wade around and it was FREEZING!! Apparently all the water in this part of the ocean was from a glacier. That was ok though, its what we expected, in fact we didn't even bring our swimsuits. We ended up sunbathing and then later on we went to a seafood restaurant on the beach to celebrate my birthday!! On Saturday while Craig slept in, I snuck out and took the "twilight tour". I first went to the Forks visitors center to get information on the tour and I realized that twilight was the best thing that has happned to this town. The lady that assisted me was wearing a twilight t-shirt, twilight jewelry and there were twilight posters EVERYWHERE! So I got my little pamplet and I went to Forks high school, the sporting goods store (where Bella works) and the hospital (where Carisle Cullen works). It was quite a thrill and Craig was glad that I went by myself and didn't drag him along :) Later on we went to the Hoh rainforest which is the only temperate rainforest in the US. It was pretty cool, there was moss everywhere! I have pictures of that, but they are still on the film in my camera (yes, I'm old school). Then we went to 3rd beach which we had to take a pleasant 1.5 mile hike through the woods to get through-- I was looking for vampires and warewolves, but alas I saw none. Finally we ended our trip by going to Rialto beach in La Push. There was no sand, only rocks, it was pretty neat. If we were to do it again, we would want to camp on the beach. There were quite a few people that just packed there gear down there and set up their tents right on the beach. Overall it was a nice, relaxing vacation. Thanks Craig for the wonderful birthday present!!

Craig next to a really big tree on our hike to 3rd beach

Me in the hollow of a tree, and if we hadn't have already rented a hotel room, I would've stayed there :)

Craig on the beach for the first time in a long time.

First beach

The town of La Push (you can't really see it, but there really wasn't that much there)

Forks High School

Second Beach

The outside of the market.

The little lady that worked there was holding up crab legs behind my head while Craig took a picture-- what a jokester!

For those of you who are huge fans of the travel channel, this is one of the places that is featured by them whenever they do a blip about Seattle. We went down to this market its an indoor fish/vegetable/ flower/ anything else you want market. At this one spot where we had the pictures of us taken, it was a fish place and at this place the workers actually put on a little show for you. They start throwing the fish around like they do on a boat, and then they have someone stand underneath where they are going to throw it, and they put a cup on their head and they throw the fish over their heads, trying to knock the cup off. It was a lot of fun. At the very end they are tossing the fish back and forth and the one guy tells the other guy "go long" and he tosses this fish out and it lands among the crowd of onlookers, and it turns out to be a fake fish- it had me screaming though. We bought a pound of halibut and baked it in our oven and it must have come from heaven becuase it was soooo good!

It's taken me a while to actually get some pictures developed, but I finally have and am going to post them. These pictures are pictures of our trip to the beach. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, we headed out to the beach, we poked around in the freezing cold water for seashells and buried our toesies in the sand. Not exactly a picture perfect beach with white sand and clear blue water, instead it was dirty sand with lots of seaweed in the water, but we still had fun.

Craig is looking for seashells, look at all that lovely seaweed! This beach was right outside Tacoma, so if you look real close on that hill in the distance, you can see the thriving metropolis that is Tacoma.