Our Trip to Forks

My sister Laura and I had discussed doing a trip up to Forks, WA for a Twilight book tour. Our calendars have been booking up so we decided to go with short notice during the earliest and possibly only free weekend, which was last weekend.

Everyone was so nice up there, we both had a blast and enjoyed our trip immensely. One of the things that made the trip really fun was how the town just embraced the fact that Twilighters were coming up. The visitor's guide had an article on the 'Twilight Phenomenon" and informs the visitors and locals that the Twilighters can be spotted because they'll be taking pictures of signs or with signs. (Like this one....) It was a funny article because it's true.

Here are a few examples of Forks embracing us nerds....

1. Forks Community Hospital
Hahahaha!!! They created a sign for Dr. Cullen in the parking lot. They have such a great sense of humor!! It cracked me up.

And the people in the town made sure we knew it was there - which was very nice of them. because we originally had no idea.



2. The town stores and businesses

Even the True Value Hardware store had a picture of Edward and Bella in the window... a hardware store!! So funny! One of the coolest thing was that each store had their own set of items. Some made their own shirts and etc. It's nice that you're not finding the same thing over and over again.

I actually got a couple t-shirts and a cool mug & pen. And if you have any questions about locations the workers at the stores are very helpful. :-)


3. Bella's Truck
That's right, I said Bella's truck!! Isn't that awesome?!?!? It's at the Chamber of Commerce so it's not hard to miss.

There are also houses that are designated as Edward, Bella, and Jacob's house. The Cullen's and Bella's houses are in Forks and Jacob's is in La Push.... just like in the book! (Imagine that...)

There's even Forks Outfitters, where Bella worked and the meadows that are mentioned (THE meadow is off of Highway 110 then Laura & I found the meadow outside of town that would be perfect for James and his pose to crash the baseball game.)

4. The Chamber of Commerce & their awesome sign

That's a pretty sweet sign they have there.







5. The Twilight Sandwich
Yes that's right, Subway created a Twilight Sandwich in Forks. And I had to take a bite into that thing... and may I add that it was very yummy! And Sulley's, which is a hamburger joint, created a Bella Burger.



Now, we didn't just stop at Forks, we went all out and visited Port Angeles:

This is a very cute town. I would like to spend some more time up here. We didn't only see Gottschalks (where Bella's friends shopped for prom dresses) but we went to the restroom there as well. That's right you're jealous now, huh? We passed the bookstore that Bella almost went into. We went to the movie theater, and Bella Italia. But sadly Bella Italia is only opened in the evenings so we couldn't eat there. That'll be next time!

And we also saw....
le gasp! Are these complete random strangers the ones that attacked Bella??

Disclaimer: we do not judge on appearances unlike those people at the movie theater that judge my friends and I as bad people because we were watching Mama Mia dressed like punks. You don't know us! (I must admit that we had great reactions that it was worth it... it was so funny!) Just because two guys are walking around in leather jackets does not make them hoodlums or dangerous.


And no trip to Forks would be complete without going to La Push!

I absolutely loved La Push. On our way we found this awesome sign and decided that must be the Bella drop-off point since Edward can't take her into La Push himself. Aren't my photoshop skills amazing? I was going for feeling of a football game plan.

And while we were there Laura had an epiphany...

And once we were at La Push we visited the gorgeous First Beach, again I want to go back and spend more time there!



It was a great trip and I'll finish my comic-con update asap, I promise!!!
Cheers!

Comic Con part 4 - Thursday

Sorry for that last post... boy, was that long! (I didn't realize it was so long or I would have cut it in half and made two posts...)

The first panel for that morning had Keanu Reeves - who is as cute in person as he is in the movies. Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why do movie stars come to a comic book convention to promote movies that have nothing to do with comic books?" The fact that you're reading this answers that question. There are 6,500 people that are seeing footage and hearing about the movie... most of those people are going to talk to friends and place their thoughts and opinions online... and so on.

I must say that I was suckered in and will see this movie (The Day The Earth Stood Still), if it's not rated R. It looked good and my interest was piqued. I will not be seeing this on opening day since it's the same day that Twilight opens - I'll be watching that one instead...


The second half of the panel included Mark Wahlburg, which was for Max Payne. I never played the video game, it looks very bloody which is probably very true to the video game. I will bet money that this one will be rated R. I will not be seeing it.

And after these two panels the head dude made an announcement which scared some us Twilighters... he starts talking about an announcement from the airport, I'm thinking that someone's plane was late and the Twilight panel wouldn't have everyone on it. But then he mentions Quantas... and I knew that they're out of Australia so I was thinking "Who would be involved with Quantas??" And then he mentions "Wolverine" and the room goes crazy!!!

Hugh Jackman comes running on the stage and the crowd erupts!! He tells us that X-men 1, 2, and 3 never showed at comic con, but he wanted to bring Wolverine here. Again the crowd goes crazy. Honestly last I heard the Wolverine movie was just a rumor. But apparently it's already filmed.

Hugh Jackman was so funny! He loves being Wolverine and he was so excited to bring the clip to us. He told us that they just barely wrapped up filming and he was taping together the clip on the airplane. LOL He even came off the stage to shake the hand of the Wolverine creator. You should have seen security once they realized he was trying to get off the stage. They were like "what do we do?!? We can't let him do this!! SCRAMBLE!!! SCRAMBLE!!" They were scrambling to make sure he was surrounded while he ran through the front of the crowd. Yeah, he realized his mistake when he got back on stage, "oh, I probably shouldn't have done that." And as I mentioned before I was freaking happy that I saw GAMBIT!!! It's about time that they put him in a movie. I so can't wait for this one to come out!

The next panel was the Summit Entertainment panel and the 6500 people in the room explode when they come out. Of course they were smart and included two other movies before they got to Twilight. They showed us clips of Push and Knowing, both look VERY good. If they're not rated R I'll be seeing these ones as well. And now onto the Twilight panel....

To be continued....

Comic Con part 3 - Wednesday / Thursday

One of my favorite responses Wednesday night to the line question was by Joey's husband. "We're in line for 'Escape to Witch Mountain' I've been waiting years for the sequel." The people asking the question would laugh and then ask, "No really what are you in line for?" And he'd say it again. It was the best!

Technically only 4-day passes were able to be picked up on Wednesday. But Sarah and a few of our new found friends decided to try to get their Thursday pass early. Registration was almost closed so they figured now is the only time to do it! Honestly, I didn't expect them to come back with their passes.

And to my astonishment Sarah was able to work her magic and get the Thursday passes for them. She's amazing!!

Everyone was getting along very well... until the cutters started coming. About midnight this blonde girl comes up and sits at the front of the line and starts talking to the people like they were holding her a spot. One of the ladies tells here that this is the front and the end is around the building. (yes it was already around the building by midnight.) She acts surprised by the fact that this isn't the end of the line. First of all, there's the obvious sign that says this is the beginning, but also when does the end of the line EVER stop right by the entrance? Isn't that usually the beginning, hence the word 'entrance?' I'm just asking.

I was able to get about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, nothing solid because I kept waking up but it was good enough. After waking up I was talking to a couple of the ladies behind us and they were telling me that people were getting out of taxis and cutting all night. They finally had security come over to take order. But I couldn't believe the nerve of people.

A few minutes after telling me this I see the same blonde girl with a friend walks over and sits down about 5 people behind me. The group that she cut in front of tried to get her to leave but she wouldn't claiming that "she belonged there." That group had been there since 7:00 so I piped in and mentioned how she had tried to cut at the beginning of the line at midnight. She acts all innocent and "I'm not doing anything wrong." She won't budge and security is gone for a few hours so we resigned to the fact that we'll have to wait until security gets back to kick her out.

About 15 mins later two of her friends from WAY back in the line come up and tell her to save them spots and she's like "sure" Ok that got everyone going again. By this time the lady that talked to her at midnight about her cutting came back and saw what had happened and she got on her case. Sarah and I joined the forces of the group in front and behind of us and the group that she had cutted in front also joined our force and we were able to expel the evil force back in her spot of the line. But of course later she complained to security that we were all cutting in line. Honestly, the nerve of some people.

About 3:00 in the morning Sarah and I decided to get dressed and "freshen up" the best as we could. I actually changed my clothes under my blanket... dang I'm good. But we decided to borrow the bathroom at the Marriott to freshen up.


Summit Entertainment (the ones bringing us Twilight) brought us donuts. This donut character is from one of their movies... I'm not sure which one. The donuts were enjoyed by all those in line around us. It was so nice of them...

And Sarah enjoyed the donut but didn't let it stop her from reading Eclipse again.

My dad came with cinnamon rolls around 6:00 and he finally understood that we were smart. Yes there were already thousands in line.

By the time 9:30 came when they opened the doors to let us in the courtyard was packed with people. Definitely more than the 6500 people that this room holds.

To be continued....

Comic Con Part 2 - Wednesday

This is my Dad and he wasn't pleased or impressed that Sarah and I were going to campout on the sidewalks of San Diego.

"How about you stay at your hotel and I'll come pick you up early, about 6 in the morning?"

"Nope that won't work. We need to camp out." He didn't really care for my response.


Sarah packed as quickly as she could. We had to get back to stake out our spots in line.


I'm all packed and ready to go!


We arrived at about 5:00 or 6:00 Wednesday evening... I can't remember. We met the people around us and they were very nice. They were from the TwilightMOMs website. (very nice people)

You know, people and their blindness to the obvious amaze me. We're right under the sign that says "Hall H Line begins here." So, obviously we're in line for Hall H. I lost track of how many times we were asked, "What are you in line for?" At first our answers were in detail, "The Twilight panel tomorrow morning in Hall H." And then they progressed to just "Hall H." My personal favorite response to us was, "You do know that room holds 6500 people, right?" My evil side wanted to respond with "uh.. You do know that we obviously want to be up front, right? But thanks for the useless information." But I kept it nice with a basic, "Yes, but we want to be up front."

We had a lot of people stare at us and take our pictures. So I decided to take pictures of people staring.

Honestly, you're at a comic book convention, you shouldn't be surprised by anything we geeks do! Honestly...

To be continued....

Comic Con Part 1 - Wednesday

My sister has been bugging me about my blog and the whole fact that I haven't updated. I've been delayed because I haven't had time to sit down and crop my photos and all of that jazz. But then I started thinking, "If I do one post about Comic con that will be a MASSIVE post."

So I'm going to post in sections and I have time for that! Now, to grasp the complexity of the first day I'm going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a young married woman (who is the mother of three beautiful children.) She discovered a book series, thanks to her sister-in-law, that she fell in love with.

One day while out with the family at a pizza joint her sister-in-law and father-in-law were talking about Comic con. And a thought occurred to her, "I can go for the one day to see the Twilight panel." Her husband wasn't thrilled with the idea because back in April he wanted to attend Comic con and was told no. The sister-in-law was no help, "Sure you can. Thursday isn't sold out yet. Dad, can you look it up on your phone to make sure there are still Thursday tickets?" Needless to say the rest of the dinner was spent getting comic con and airline tickets for this young woman. (And it was a good thing too because Thursday sold out the following day.)

Now onto the first day...

Laura was kind enough to take Sarah and I to the airport Wednesday morning and my parents were kind enough to pick us up in San Diego.

Even the Marriott got into the spirit of things. I love Batman (if you couldn't tell...)

But I also love Transformers and when we were parking I spotted a tripped out Transformers car. I had to take it's picture! Sarah was kind enough to walk through the parkade with me. We finally found it and isn't it beautiful?

Man, I love geeks! We just have fun in whatever fandom we're in. Which will bring me to my next part of the story....

Since my Dad and I had a 4-day pass we were able to pick up our badges Wednesday afternoon and enjoy preview night Wednesday night. As we passed Hall H I noticed that there were people sitting below the sign that read "Hall H line begins here." I didn't think anything of it and I went ahead to pick up my badge.

But then I had a nagging feeling. Were people already lining up at 4:00 for Thursday morning panels? I wanted to confirm that the staff will not be clearing out the rooms between the panels, so I told my dad to find someone and ask them that; while I ran down to H from the E entrance to find out if there really was a line already. (Divide and conquer)

Sure enough they were in line (there were 5 people already) and they were going to camp out to see Twilight. "Brilliant. That's very smart. My sister-in-law and I may join you...."

I quickly call Sarah, "How far are you willing to go to see the Twilight panel? I'm game if you are. There are people in line already and they're camping out."

"Let's do it. I only came for the one day." Sarah quickly replied.

You may think that we were crazy to camp out, but then you just don't understand! (We are crazy... but it was FUN!)

To be continued......