Forks, Dumpy Vampires, and Tourists

Been here in Forks, WA for two weeks now, and finally getting the hang of things around here. For the most part I like the town. First getting here, all anyone ever talks about is how much it rains (the amount of rain they get, different kinds if rain they get, the color of the rain, recipes for cooking rain, songs about rain, etc, ad nauseum). However, in the past two weeks we have had beautiful weather. It has rained a little, but you soon realize that's why everything here is so wonderfully green as well, and it's worth the trade. Yesterday I drove to Port Angeles (residents just call it PA). I parked in a lot right off of the ocean, but when I looked back inland, the snow covered mountain peaks were so close it felt as though you could just reach out and touch them. I sat there for a couple of minutes and just appreciated the thought of how close to the ocean these awesome peaks were.



For those of you not "in the know", Forks is also famous right now. It happens to be the setting for the profitable book-to-movie, "Twilight" series written by Stephanie Meyer. In the book, a young Bella Swan moves to Forks, where a family of vampires named Cullen and Native American werewolves inhabit the surrounding areas. The movie was released last year and since then the town has been a madhouse for tourists that come to see "Bella's Birthplace". Unfortunately for the tourists, Forks has absolutely nothing to do with the books...NOTHING. Apparently the author simply did a websearch for the city in America with the greatest rainfall/year and the name came up. Before writing the novel she had never lived here, never visited, nada, nothing. Even the movie has nothing to do with the city. There is one scene filmed in Forks that shows the "Welcome to Forks" sign, everything else was done in either Vancouver, WA or the Portland area.

However, driving through the city, you would never think that. The sign as you enter town now says, "Welcome to Forks-Home of Twilight!", all of the hotels have signs saying, "Vacancy, Vampires welcome!", and the local hospital has a parking space that says, "Reserved for Dr. Cullen" (I think the janitor guy actually parks there). Every business (and I mean EVERY), has some mention of the movie, from the Bella Burger at "Sully's Burger Joint", to the multiple movie posters in the windows of the local chinese restaurant. A special "Twilight Store" offers tours of the town, showing you such wonders as the high school (that wasn't even in the movie) that Bella would have attended (had she been a real person instead of fiction). My first day I went to the town's Visitor's Center (only place with WiFi) and sat outside at a table. A short black bus, painted with little diamond sparkles pulled to a stop just shy of the door. Out came (and I shit you not) about 6 middle aged, dumpy women, all holding copies of the book. The last to get off was wearing a black cape and had deep red lipstick painted on as well. I could just begin to imagine the fake teeth when she opened her mouth and....BOOYAH-fake teeth! This was the tour, and it runs twice daily, and people PAY FOR IT! I noticed the tour crowded around an older model red Ford pickup with a Washington license plate that said BELLA on it. It looked quite a bit like the truck from the movie (except the one in the movie is a Chevy), and there were about 20 people crowded around it taking pictures and pointing. When I went into the center to ask about other Wifi sites in town, I mentioned the discrepancy to the information chick. She said,

"Yeah, that trucks been sitting there for awhile, it was originally part of the logging exhibit. But so many people kept asking if it was 'Bella's Truck' I finally just went outside and put that license plate on it. Now we sell pictures of it to the tourists"

As I have mentioned before, I don't blame the people of Forks for all this. They need the boost in the local economy, and have to take advantage of what they can get, wherever it may come from. But the fact that busloads of tourists are here to take pictures of some random diner (because they thought it was from the movie), instead of taking a hike in the only temperate rainforest in the Northern Hemisphere just seems....fucking ridiculous.