Monday, September 22, 2008

Revitalizing Forks

Thanks to Twilight, the small Washington town of Forks is coming back to life. MercuryNews.com has an article out regarding Forks and its new-found tourism. Instead of posting the whole article, I'm posting only a small portion of it. You can view it in its entirety by clicking this link.

"As the pages kept coming, the series' cultlike following increased. Before long, fans started showing up in Forks, looking to see if magic would spark when imagination collided with reality. What they found was a two-stoplight town where more than a foot of rain falls each month. A place where success is measured in sweat and four-wheel drive.

But Forks was quick to embrace the frenzied fans.

Forks' "Twilight"-inspired turn has been nothing short of magical, Marcia Bingham, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, says.

"We've probably had more than 100 people a day," says Bingham, who has eagerly watched as van after van of giddy readers—mostly female—pull up in front of the town's visitors center.

For many fans, the line where reality ends and imagination begins is starting to blur, says Michael Gurling, who caught inspiration from the tourism boom and started his own Twilight Tours.

After enlisting a few locals, he asked for help in picking out houses that could serve as stand-ins for the book's famous Forks' stops: Bella and Edward's houses, a field where vampires play baseball. Other locations, such as the police station, where Bella's father works, and the hospital, where Edward's father is a doctor, play their own parts. They chipped in, providing cruisers near which fans may take pictures and reserving a spot for "Dr. Cullen" in the parking lot.
"The most popular spot is probably the beach, in LaPush, where Bella finds out the truth about Edward," says Gurling.

On a recent Friday, Gurling's van headed out of the visitor's center parking lot—packed, as it is most every weekend, with teenage girls. Outside the stand-in for Edward's house, a sign on the door says "Cullens" are volunteering a blood drive.

"It's not quite how I thought it would be," says Yena Hu, a University of Washington sophomore who made the four-hour trek from Seattle to visit. "They're always talking about all the windows—and in the book, the house is on the water."

But it's surprising how much Meyer did get right, considering she'd never been to Forks when she wrote the first book. A quick Internet search revealed Forks was one of the rainiest places in the world, and from her home in Arizona, the stay-at-home mom began rewriting history.

While locals are accepting of their newfound fame, they're all too aware of the mania that is continuing to grow."

9 comments:

ACDC2005 said...

I personally think it's really cool that I live pretty close to Forks.

Patty said...

Those are some pretty cool looking pictures. The scenery is beautiful!!

hoLLy said...

that would be a cool place to visit! isn't it funny how a book brought an otherwise unheard of city out of obscurity and into the spotlight?

Cindy said...

Too bad we all don't live closer. Wouldn't it be so fun to go there as a group? I guess we'll have to convince Aimee to head on over there and take some pictures for us :-) How close are you Aimee???? lol......

ACDC2005 said...

Just a few hours, and I was totally going to say that I'm going to go! If Chrystina and Jeremy get stationed here I'm going to bring her with me! Hehehe! But either way I'm going and I'll def. do a blog post for the site (if you want)!

Cindy said...

Aimee, we want you to join our blog!! Please have Chrystina give me your email address(she knows mine) and I'll send you an invitation to be a "Twilightibutor" :-)

Tara D. said...

I would so love to go to Forks! Yes Aimee, you have to visit and take some pictures. :)

ACDC2005 said...

Yay! Okay! I have two new interviews with "Emmett" for Twilight Tuesdays!

Sheba's Mommy said...

I would really enjoy visiting Forks also. I have always loved the rain, so I figure I would really like it there. Here where I live in Southern California, we don't get much rain, so I kind of envy a place like Forks that gets a lot of rain. Plus to have such an awesome story put along with a place like Forks, WA is just magical!