RV Park – Forks, Washington – A Twilight Adventure

Three Rivers Resort RV Park Forks Washington Vampries Twilight

One of my bucket list items on this journey was to visit Forks, Washington. How often do you get the opportunity to visit the real life location of one of your fantasy book/movie worlds? It is a rare opportunity as most fictional locations are truly fictional. So, we decided to spend a weekend in Forks, Washington – home of the Cullen vampire clan. Our RV park, Three Rivers Resort, was located right on the Treaty Line; and if you’ve watched the movies or read the books, you know exactly what that Treaty Line stands for.

This RV park was gorgeous. It is definitely one to stay at to get away for a weekend (not one for cell service or good internet connection). The scenery is stunning. I just love the beauty of feeling the trees completely surrounding you. It was a tight fit for our RV, but we managed to get in and I’m so glad we did. Everywhere you looked from the RV, all you could see were these beautiful, forever tall trees.

While in Forks, we got the opportunity to visit many of the places that inspired Stephenie Meyers while she was writing Twilight. We visited Forks High School, Bella’s truck, the hospital (including Dr. Cullen’s parking spot), The Swan residence, the Cullen residence, and so much more. It is so wonderful to see a small town embracing the fictional world created by an author that is beloved by so many.

We also went to La Push and wow, it was more gorgeous than I ever could have imagined. So gorgeous, it may be enough to persuade you to become Team Jacob 😉 It’s La Push, baby.

ampgrou

Full-Time RVers Visit Pike Place Market in Seattle

Seattle Washington Pike Place Market Full Time RV

We’ve recently learned we aren’t really fans of big cities. We much prefer the slower pace of life we’re finding in all the little towns across America, but occasionally, there are some “big city” places you just have to visit. Pike Place Market is one of them. We had the best time visiting the Market and we loved so much about it – the flowers, the seafood, the produce, the apple cider. We didn’t love the crowds, but it was worth it for the experience and the delicious crab we scored for dinner that night.

And We’ll Have Fun, Fun, Fun at the Washington State Fair

Washington State Fair Beach Boys Concert John Stamos

The Washington State Fair is legendary – so legendary that their website is literally just thefair.com. They’ve been around forever (since 1900 to be exact) and some of their famous food and rides have been around for nearly 100 years. We found out The Beach Boys were going to be in concert at the fair so we decided to go. John Stamos was playing with them this particular show so of course, this 90s kid couldn’t not go. What 90s kid doesn’t wish they could say they saw Uncle Jesse in concert?

Full-Time RVers – Campground / RV Park Review: Harmony Lakeside RV Park

Harmony Lakeside RV Park Campground Review

Harmony Lakeside RV Park was in a beautiful little area south of Seattle. It wasn’t close enough to drive to Seattle to eat or sightsee, but it was close enough to make Seattle our next stop. We booked a gorgeous lakeside spot and the views were spectacular. We were able to walk our paddleboards right down the dock and paddle out on the lake.

These west coast sunsets give me all the feels.

While the lake was beautiful, the bathhouse was a disappointment. You may be asking why because these pictures are gorgeous. Well, they left the quarter machine connected to the showers so to use hot water, you have to insert quarters. I don’t mind quarter showers if they take more than one quarter at a time and you don’t have to get completely out of the shower to add another quarter. It was awful. Insert one quarter for 4 minutes worth of hot water. You can’t insert a second quarter to add to the time and to add time you have to get completely out of the shower. It was the worst RV park shower I’ve used since we started full-timing.

We did love the laundry room though. It was different as in, it only had 2 washers and 2 dryers, but when you get the key, it is all yours. You have to put your name on a list and then you get a key. You’re the only person with a key and it is yours until you return the key. Sure only one person uses it at a time, but nobody can mess with my clothes (or add their clothes to my machine – yep, that’s actually happened to us). We enjoyed it, but likely only because it was the off-season so the RV wasn’t very busy.

We also had a Hurricane Party while we were here because we felt a little left out. Back home was dealing with Hurricane Irma and our favorite spots in the Florida Keys were getting battered with this storm. This weather junkie was pretty sad to not be out in the storm measuring wind speeds so drinks, puzzles, and streaming The Weather Channel happened all night. I ended up with an extra puzzle piece. How does that even happen? Not cool.

Ready for a crazy story? When we arrived at Harmony Lakeside RV Park, the incredibly sweet lady working the front desk said, “so we have this situation.” We immediately were like no big deal, thinking we probably couldn’t get into our RV site yet or something of that nature. She said, “I’m going to have to escort you to your site and ask the police officers to move their vehicles for a moment as we have a situation.” Ok, please explain more. She politely let us know, the police were trying to get 2 people to come out of an RV, they wouldn’t come out so they were likely going to just tow the RV away with them inside if they didn’t come out. We thought, no big deal – they probably ran out of money, didn’t pay rent, and now they’re embarrassed. WRONG. SO. WRONG. There were 2 robbery suspects inside the RV and they were refusing to come out. We witnessed an entire stand off between the police and the 2 men inside. Turns out, they had numerous warrants out for their arrest and wouldn’t come out. A couple hours after we checked in, the police finally received their search warrant and busted down the RV door – all while the entire RV park stood around watching. We aren’t quite sure why we weren’t all told to leave – they easily could have come out with weapons. We got quite the show while we were settling in for the week.

The Mountains of America

Does anything scream America more than Mount Rushmore?

Ok, so I say that a lot. Everything out West screams America to me. The history. The beauty of the land. The Presidents’ faces carved in granite mountainsides. Ok, it’s also kind of weird too, right? We carved the faces of 4 Presidents into the side of a mountain.

But, that’s America.

And, that’s what makes us awesome.

We did the audio tour and I highly recommend it. Not only is the audio tour amazing in itself, but all of the money goes back into the National Monument. We learned that the typical gift shops are outsourced and none of the money goes back into the area, but the places called bookstores are a nonprofit that exists for the sole purpose of making improvements to Mount Rushmore National Monument. The friendly gentleman working the audio tour counter told us all this information including some of the improvements made to the facilities funded by audio tours and bookstores (the recent addition of the parking facility being one of them).

We learned all about Gutzon Borglum, the man responsible for the creation of Mount Rushmore. He took such pride in his work and wanted everything to be perfect, but his employees did too. They hiked up the mountain everyday off the clock to get to work for years until they were able to build a mechanism to get themselves up the mountain.

Did you know 90% of Mount Rushmore was carved using dynamite blasts? They would drill small holes, shove dynamite inside, and blast them. They were so precise with their blasts that most of the work was done by blasting rather than hand carving. The remaining 10% was carved.

Also, I started my National Park Passport here! First stamp, Mount Rushmore!

Where are my National Treasure fans at? The second movie was filmed in the area including the nearby town of Keystone. Remember the Hall of Records? It’s a real thing – just not quite as awesome as in the movie. The Hall of Records was Borglum’s idea and he wanted it to hold a history of our country including valuable documents and items. He died before all of this was finished and never saw that come to life, but they did make sure a version of the Hall of Records existed. It is housed to a few tokens of history. While not as big and impressive as Borglum dreamed it to be, it still exists and who knows, maybe we’re told this and it really holds a city of gold like in National Treasure II.