Published: Saturday, September 12, 2009
The quirky Washington coast: From beaches to vampires
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Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times
Taylor Dock in Bellingham is a popular gathering spot for kids and kayakers.
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Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times
Cape Flattery, part of the Makah Reservation at the northwestern tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, has a half-mile trail to land’s end.
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Don Ryan / Associated Press
The setting sun paints cloud-filled skies over the bridge connecting Oregon and Washington at Astoria, Ore.
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Associated Press/Ted S. Warren
Vistors on the “Twilight Tour” in Forks stop at a house portrayed as the home of teenage vampire Edward Cullen, a character in the “Twilight” series of books by Stephenie Meyer.
This is Part 2 of a two-part story on traveling the Oregon and Washington coasts. As in Part 1 (Oregon) that ran in last Saturday's Good Life, we suggested you drive down I-5 to Longview, take Highway 433 to U.S. 30 (in Oregon) and begin the trip up the Washington coast in Astoria, Ore.
After crossing the majestic Astoria-Megler Bridge I began my exploration of the Washington coast by checking in to the Historic Sou'Wester Lodge.
When taking the reservation in Seaview near Cape Disappointment, the Sou'wester's proprietor, Len Atkins, didn't want me to be too disappointed: “I hesitate to describe anything here as comfortable, but it's good for the soul.”
She was a faded beauty, 35 feet long, and Atkins led me to her at dusk.
“Spartan Royal Manor,” read the letters on her side. She dated to about 1954, which put her among the most senior trailers on the grassy three-acre field. But she was fully functional, with a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom with cool, curvy corners.
Every guest, Atkins told me, is invited into the farmhouse great room, where he and his wife, Miriam, hold court amid hundreds of books and works of art.
The Atkinses, both 80 and raised in South Africa, came to this rustic clubhouse nearly 30 years ago after stints in Israel and Chicago, and they've made it a haven for world-class conversation or deep reflection, not creature comforts. It's better if you're not in a hurry.
“You know,” Len said pleasantly, as I was leaving, “what you're doing is just about the exact opposite of what we're trying to do here.”
All I could do was shrug and hit the accelerator.
At Cape Disappointment, I checked out the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. (In 1805, it was here at the mouth of the Columbia that their expedition reached the Pacific.) At Cosmopolis, I bought gas. At the Kalaloch Lodge, I combed the beach amid enough driftwood to build a town of soggy, silvery log cabins.
At Ruby Beach, I found thousands of surf-tumbled stones, stacked by human hands to make a cairn wonderland.
And then in Forks, things got weird.
The Chamber of Commerce parking lot was jammed. Dozens of tourists, many of them teenage girls, thronged a tour bus. The Forks Motel marquee read “Welcome to Forks Home of Twilight Heated Pool.”
Forks, population 3,175, is the setting of novelist Stephenie Meyer's vampire series “Twilight.” She found this little lumber town, which neighbors the Hoh rain forest, searching on Google for some place dark, wet and American.
Thanks to the release of four “Twilight” books since 2005 and a movie in late 2008, local tourism has been rising faster than a zombie hand from clammy cemetery dirt.
The number of visitors has increased nearly tenfold in three years, the Chamber of Commerce says, and I saw dozens of travelers like Malia Suzui, 21, and Lani Kiefel, 37, who drove from Walla Walla.
“We had dinner at Bella Italia, where Edward and Bella had their first date,” Kiefel said, speaking of the protagonists as if they were our great mutual friends.
“And we've re-enacted things,” Suzui said. “I even asked somebody to mug me in Port Angeles. Pretend-mug.” (I'm told there's a near-mugging in one of the books. Not having read it, I just nodded.)
“And we have teeth,” said Kiefel, which sent them both diving into their bags for fake fangs.
About six hours later, I reached Port Townsend, checked into the affordable Waterstreet Hotel and discovered that Jack Acid, a Grateful Dead cover band, was about to crank it up in the bar just below my room.
No matter how whipped I was, sleep was not going to happen soon. So I went downstairs, nursed a beer through “Alabama Getaway” and several other old favorites, and crashed when the music was done, about 1:30 a.m.
Then I caught the morning ferry, scooted over the 180-foot-high Deception Pass Bridge and sprinted up to Blaine, the last city before Canada.
Blaine's Peace Arch State Park is a perfect grassy meadow, open to pedestrians from both sides of the border. There's a sculpture garden, a big arch and all sorts of ornamental horticulture, including flowers arranged to resemble stars, stripes and a maple leaf. The Pacific was just across the street and down the hill.
Life at the border was sweet. But this didn't feel like the end of the road.
What had looked and felt like the end of the road was Cape Flattery, the day before.
Because the Olympic Peninsula juts farther west than does the rest of Washington's coast, this cape is the northwesternmost point in the continental U.S.
I almost had bypassed it for fear it would be smothered in fog. But as I neared the coast north of Forks, the sky cleared. Past the signs for Beaver and Sappho, past Clallam Bay and Sekiu, the roads led onto Makah Reservation land and grew more narrow and rugged.
After Neah Bay and miles of wriggling along the water's edge, the road cut inland to a modest trailhead.
The trail was just half a mile long, a tantalizing forest path, blue sky, turquoise sea. There I was, at land's end. Gulls crying. Waves slapping.
Ahead lay tiny Tatoosh Island, topped, of course, by a white lighthouse from 1857.
To my right, to the north, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lay a foreign country. I forget the name, but it's supposed to have pretty good health care.
After crossing the majestic Astoria-Megler Bridge I began my exploration of the Washington coast by checking in to the Historic Sou'Wester Lodge.
When taking the reservation in Seaview near Cape Disappointment, the Sou'wester's proprietor, Len Atkins, didn't want me to be too disappointed: “I hesitate to describe anything here as comfortable, but it's good for the soul.”
She was a faded beauty, 35 feet long, and Atkins led me to her at dusk.
“Spartan Royal Manor,” read the letters on her side. She dated to about 1954, which put her among the most senior trailers on the grassy three-acre field. But she was fully functional, with a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom with cool, curvy corners.
Every guest, Atkins told me, is invited into the farmhouse great room, where he and his wife, Miriam, hold court amid hundreds of books and works of art.
The Atkinses, both 80 and raised in South Africa, came to this rustic clubhouse nearly 30 years ago after stints in Israel and Chicago, and they've made it a haven for world-class conversation or deep reflection, not creature comforts. It's better if you're not in a hurry.
“You know,” Len said pleasantly, as I was leaving, “what you're doing is just about the exact opposite of what we're trying to do here.”
All I could do was shrug and hit the accelerator.
At Cape Disappointment, I checked out the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. (In 1805, it was here at the mouth of the Columbia that their expedition reached the Pacific.) At Cosmopolis, I bought gas. At the Kalaloch Lodge, I combed the beach amid enough driftwood to build a town of soggy, silvery log cabins.
At Ruby Beach, I found thousands of surf-tumbled stones, stacked by human hands to make a cairn wonderland.
And then in Forks, things got weird.
The Chamber of Commerce parking lot was jammed. Dozens of tourists, many of them teenage girls, thronged a tour bus. The Forks Motel marquee read “Welcome to Forks Home of Twilight Heated Pool.”
Forks, population 3,175, is the setting of novelist Stephenie Meyer's vampire series “Twilight.” She found this little lumber town, which neighbors the Hoh rain forest, searching on Google for some place dark, wet and American.
Thanks to the release of four “Twilight” books since 2005 and a movie in late 2008, local tourism has been rising faster than a zombie hand from clammy cemetery dirt.
The number of visitors has increased nearly tenfold in three years, the Chamber of Commerce says, and I saw dozens of travelers like Malia Suzui, 21, and Lani Kiefel, 37, who drove from Walla Walla.
“We had dinner at Bella Italia, where Edward and Bella had their first date,” Kiefel said, speaking of the protagonists as if they were our great mutual friends.
“And we've re-enacted things,” Suzui said. “I even asked somebody to mug me in Port Angeles. Pretend-mug.” (I'm told there's a near-mugging in one of the books. Not having read it, I just nodded.)
“And we have teeth,” said Kiefel, which sent them both diving into their bags for fake fangs.
About six hours later, I reached Port Townsend, checked into the affordable Waterstreet Hotel and discovered that Jack Acid, a Grateful Dead cover band, was about to crank it up in the bar just below my room.
No matter how whipped I was, sleep was not going to happen soon. So I went downstairs, nursed a beer through “Alabama Getaway” and several other old favorites, and crashed when the music was done, about 1:30 a.m.
Then I caught the morning ferry, scooted over the 180-foot-high Deception Pass Bridge and sprinted up to Blaine, the last city before Canada.
Blaine's Peace Arch State Park is a perfect grassy meadow, open to pedestrians from both sides of the border. There's a sculpture garden, a big arch and all sorts of ornamental horticulture, including flowers arranged to resemble stars, stripes and a maple leaf. The Pacific was just across the street and down the hill.
Life at the border was sweet. But this didn't feel like the end of the road.
What had looked and felt like the end of the road was Cape Flattery, the day before.
Because the Olympic Peninsula juts farther west than does the rest of Washington's coast, this cape is the northwesternmost point in the continental U.S.
I almost had bypassed it for fear it would be smothered in fog. But as I neared the coast north of Forks, the sky cleared. Past the signs for Beaver and Sappho, past Clallam Bay and Sekiu, the roads led onto Makah Reservation land and grew more narrow and rugged.
After Neah Bay and miles of wriggling along the water's edge, the road cut inland to a modest trailhead.
The trail was just half a mile long, a tantalizing forest path, blue sky, turquoise sea. There I was, at land's end. Gulls crying. Waves slapping.
Ahead lay tiny Tatoosh Island, topped, of course, by a white lighthouse from 1857.
To my right, to the north, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lay a foreign country. I forget the name, but it's supposed to have pretty good health care.
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