Road Trip Day Four: Forks, Washington and the Hoh Rainforest

We left Bremerton early to head toward Forks. 

It was kind of funny. As we were driving I told my family about a bridge that terrified me as a kid. 

It was a "floating" bridge and I was always afraid we were going to be swept away into the river. I was convinced that it was the most dangerous thing in the world. 

My dad said, "Yeah, we're crossing that."

But it has had a major overhaul so it wasn't so scary anymore. 

 

It was a typical foggy, rainy morning.
The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I occasionally made my dad pull over so I could take some pictures.
This lake was so pretty.

a big herd of elk...

After a few hours we arrived in Forks, home of the vampires.

My mom and I both read and watched the Twilight books and movies and we both really enjoy them. 

No haters!

It was fun to go to the town and see how immersed it is in Twilight culture. 

We drove around seeing all of the Twilight spots. 

The high school....

Bella's truck!

This one is the one from the movie, next to it is one exactly like the one in the books.

Since my dad and the girls don't care about Twilight, they waited in the car while my mom and I got out at places to take pictures. 

When we were at the visitor's center taking pictures of the trucks I noticed a little sign that said "little free library". We took the path into the woods to find it. 

I love these forests.

In the visitor's center they had all of these cutouts.

Dr. Cullen's coat...

Our next stop was Bella's house from the books. 

Then we drove by the hospital where they have a parking sign for Dr. Cullen.

Then we went to the police station where Charlie worked.
Usually there is a police car that says Charlie Swan on it but we couldn't find it.

Our next stop was the Cullen house from the books. 

The sign next to the front door told visitor's where the Cullen family was today. On vacation.

I had to take a picture of this tree. Its trunk looked like a pinecone. And it was SO tall!

We went to the small grocery store in town and grabbed some lunchables for lunch because we were all starving and couldn't find anywhere to eat in town that looked and sounded good.
We ate in the parking lot of the outfitters store from the book.

We then left and drove toward the Hoh Rainforest. 

It was a beautiful drive. 

More elk!

When we got to the visitor's center we were very sad that it was closed. But we did get out and walk around a bit.

We then drove back the way we had come, in the direction of Forks. 

From Forks we drove out toward La Push.
We should have come out this way at lunch time because there was a nice diner out this way!
By the diner we saw this sign...

We drove to First Beach. 

It was beautiful and my favorite place we visited this day. 

There were a few surfers that had come in and one was still out there.
It was really stormy and the water was crazy so we all were standing around watching the guy come in to make sure he made it.

I noticed this rock that looked like a wolf looking at the sky. 

Then we drove past Jacob Black's house. 

We then drove back toward Bremerton. 

It was a very long day so it was late and dark by the time we got close. 

We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Poulsbo that we used to go to when I was little to get some dinner and some ice cream. 

Maddy wanted me to take a picture of her next to this stained glass to send to Doug.

We then got back to our room and all relaxed and read for a while before going to sleep.

It was actually a really fun day. 

I was a bit worried that my dad and the girls were bored since most of the places we went were for my mom and my own benefit.... but I'm still really glad we did it.

Road Trip Day Three: Bremerton, Washington

On our third day we all woke up feeling a little anxious. Our emotions were catching up with us. I think we might have been functioning a little bit in shock the day before. 

We had a lot to do today but first we needed to go to the naval exchange to buy some makeup. 

My mom had lost all of hers and I had lost all of my favorite, use every day stuff. 

 I went in with my dad and picked out a few things to get through until I could get to a Target or home and found the things on my mom's list. 

We then went back to the ID spot near the gate so my mom could see about getting a new military ID. We were a little worried that it would be hard for her to get one without her regular ID, but things went smoothly and it didn't even take too long. 

There really wasn't too much time today to do the things we had thought about doing but we did spend some time shopping and then we decided to drive around visiting our old houses. 

I took a picture of this small Naval exchange in one of our old neighborhoods because when I was really little I threw a fit in here and my parents left me there laying on the floor. I quickly learned not to do that and ran after them. 

I have told the girls that story before so it was funny to show them the spot where it happened. 

I took these pictures of Maddy dancing outside the main exchange on base because I just thought it was so cute.

One of my houses when I was little...

(you can see the Puget sound in the back)

One of my favorite memories in this house/ neighborhood is that I used to walk down to a park by the Puget sound and pick blackberries and raspberries off the bushes by the water. 

We drove down there and the park was gone but there was a newer one in the same place. 

Another one of the houses from my childhood.... these ones were under construction but we could still drive by it. 

My favorite memory from this house is that I would cross a ravine behind it by walking across a log and then play in the massive forest behind it. 

Kind of.

In my mind it was a HUGE ravine and the biggest forest ever.

I went on so many adventures in that forest. 

As we drove by I realized that it wasn't so much a ravine as a ditch, and not so much a massive forest as it was a grove of trees. 

Haha. Still, a magical place. 

The next house we drove by wasn't in military housing. 

It was the house we lived in the last time we lived in Washington when I was in 5th grade. 

This house holds so many wonderful memories for me. 

We pulled into the driveway and the first thing I noticed was that my basketball hoops weren't there anymore.

They weren't real basketball hoops... there used to be these wooden beams that jutted out over the garage door in sections. I'm not sure what their purpose was but I used them as hoops. 

 

The garage was on the side of the house. 

The front of the house was to the left and didn't really face anything but some trees and the houses uphill from us. The back of the house faced the Puget sound. 

This picture looks toward the front yard. There was one lower part and one lower part separated by a small brick wall. I used to spend hours dancing out there with a stick as a microphone pretending to be a pop star. 

I have told the girls so many things about this house- the main thing I loved about it was my reading tree. 

There was an apple tree in the back yard. It had two branches near the top that were close to each other and in the perfect spots for me to sit on one and lean my back against the other. 

I would go out and sit in that tree, read a book, eat an apple, and look out over the Puget Sound. 

It is one of my favorite childhood memories. 

Unfortunately, my reading tree was gone. 

As we drove away we went past the back and I got this shot of the back. The tree used to be right by where the deck is. (It's the house in the background, not the foreground)

As we drove up the freeway to get back to the base, my mom got excited when she saw this hotel because the town has changed so much that she was having a hard time getting her bearings but when she saw this she knew where we were. 

We lived in this hotel for a little while when we first moved to Bremerton that last time while we were waiting for the house. 

I have a very clear memory of eating vending machine food in our room, picnic style, when we first moved in. 

On our way back we stopped at Toys R Us as the girls wanted to see if they had any toys that the ones in Utah didn't have. Also, it was the only store for toys when I lived there so it was fun to see.
We also went to Target so I could get a new phone charger and some other needed things.
Then my mom and I ran into the nearby Barnes and Noble to replace our current reads that were stolen. We were so glad to be able to continue reading!

We then went back to our room and my parents moved their stuff in. 
If I am remembering right this night we got some dinner and watched the Barbie Video game Hero movie.
I was sitting in the chair starting to feel anxious again toward the end of the movie and praying over and over again that they would somehow find our stolen things when Doug called.
He said that he had just got off Skype with his mom and she had some things she wanted to tell me. 
It was basically that they were praying for us but didn't believe our things would be found and instead of praying that they would be (like I had asked Doug to do) they were praying that we would find peace in the situation. There were so many things that she said for him to tell me that were directly related to what I had been thinking and praying about that I knew it wasn't a coincidence. 
It didn't make me okay with the situation or not wish for my things back but it really was therapeutic to talk about it with him and realize how mindful of us God is even when He isn't answering our prayers in the way we want Him to.  
The next day we would try to get back into tourist mode!