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I’m a huge Twilight fan, so I was a little bit skeptical when picking up this book, but decided “what the hell” since I am already a Stephenie Meyer fan. This book was good. In fact it was great. I think it was just as good as Twilight. Despite being a Sci Fi book, I think in many ways it was more realistic than Vampires in Meyer’s other books.

She had a lot of the same themes in The Host as the Twilight series. She has some fascination with a love triangle, she raises a lot of questions about nature (as in Twilight) and she makes some characters unrealistically strong and others unrealistically weak. I loved the character development and the love story though. The main character, Wanda/Melenie is very deep. It’s two characters in one yet also two distinct characters. You’d have to read the book to understand, I don’t want to spoil anything.

It was also refreshing to see a book with no profanity and no sexuality. The most Stephenie Meyer describes is making out, any sex is left up to the imagination. Not that I am afraid to read adult themes, quite the contrary, but it is refreshing nonetheless to have a GREAT story that is also completely clean.

I was walking to Barnes and Noble Cafe during my break at work to get a cookie when I spotted a poster for this book. Although I feel it is anti-masculine or something to admit that I am a Twilight fan, I am a huge one and I had to buy this book. To be honest, it seems like a lame attempt for Stephenie Meyer to make more money. It is interesting as a Twilight fan, but it is nowhere near as engaging as the full length Twilight novels were.

Having also finished Breaking Dawn today, I feel that Meyer left us with closure but it would still be possible for her to write another Twilight novel and I know that I would certainly be buying it if/when she does decide to write it.

Hopefully it will get more engaging as I continue. But so far I wish I would have re-read Eclipse instead.

We had a great vacation to the Pacific Northwest. The places we traveled:

• Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Seattle, WA
• Forks, WA
• Portland, OR
• San Francisco, CA
• Central Coast, CA

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Getting There

I love traveling to other places around the US and experiencing the culture. It shows me how beautiful and different every state is. We started out around 11am in San Diego to hit Los Angeles traffic at the ideal time. Our plan proved successful. We drove all the way to Vancouver, BC which took us about 24 hours. I drove from San Diego, CA to Portland, OR and my Mom drove the rest of the way.

We watched the sunset around Sacramento, CA and then drove through the California mountains near Lake Shasta at night. It was snowing but completely beautiful. My only complaint was that I ran over a deer at one point (it was already dead). We arrived to Portland, OR when the sun started coming out and got to Seattle, WA around 10 am. We finally arrived to Birch Bay, WA (our condo) at about 12pm.

Vancouver, BC

After checking into our hotel in Birch Bay, WA (northern most part of WA) we drove up to Vancouver, BC. When we got to the border line to cross into Canada, we realized that we had forgotten our passports. The Canadian customs agent was very unfriendly but did grudgingly let us into Canada. It was immediately apparent that we were in a different country. The roads were much nicer, of course it was in kilometers, the people were nicer and it was just an altogether better place. The British influence was very apparent in a beautiful way. On the down side, the prices were higher on everything, the sales “provincial” tax was a lot higher than we are used to in the United States and the Canadian Dollar (CAD) is worth more than the US Dollar (USD). We weren’t going to let that ruin our day though.

My first goal was to get in touch with my friend Liam who lives near Vancouver so we could meet up for coffee or something. Unfortunately it didn’t work out because he was expecting us to come to BC the next day. So instead my Mom and I went to Starbucks to get coffee, drove around the city exploring and then eventually headed back to the border.

While in BC I didn’t hear one car horn. Despite having congested roads, no left turn signals (all left turns were yield) and narrow lanes going through the city, everyone was very patient and polite. The locals were incredibly nice to us as tourists and when I was unsure of being able to legally make a right turn on red, a guy in another lane honked at me and motioned to me that I could.

Driving in kilometers with different traffic laws was a little bit stressful. All of the road signs were different and there was a lot of road construction with changing speed limits. But we made it through.

All of Canada was very green. Both literally and figuratively. Pretty and lushly green but also green environmentally. All of the public transportation was electric, cars are required to turn off their engines when idling and there was tons of programs for recycling. Their roads were not cluttered with ignorant Americans in “global warming machines” (SUVs with 1 person driving in them, on the freeway). Almost everyone had compact cars and the few SUVs or trucks that we saw were actually for use off-road.

We next headed to White Rock, BC where we visited a public park and looked at awesome views of the ocean. After that we sat in line for 1.5 hours to cross back into the US. We expected a big hassle from the Feds for not having our passports but they were actually super nice. They did send us through secondary, but just checked our identities and let us go.

Northern Washington

We went back to Birch Bay, WA and hung out in our condo for the rest of the night. It was a completely beautiful area. Naturally beautiful. Being within Puget Sound, the ocean was very different than we are used to. Very small waves, peaceful currents, etc. But it was also really cold, so I was shocked and amazed that people were actually playing in the water.

All of Washington is completely surrounded by forests. Trees, ferns, green everywhere. I expected to have mad allergies up in that area because of all the green but I actually didn’t even have to take my allergy medicine until we got back to California the next week.

We watched the sunset in Birch Bay and then watched TV the rest of the night.

Seattle, WA

The only word I can think of to describe Seattle is amazing. It was unbelievable. It was filled with culture and beautiful people. It was like Chicago meets California but with better summer weather. I loved how environmentally friendly the city was, how everyone seemed to work together and how “green” it was (again both literally and figuratively).

Of course being the Starbucks junkie that I am, we had to visit the original Starbucks in Pikes Place. So we spent most of the day at Pikes Place Market. I got to visit Starbucks, the gum wall, an amazing fish place and another restaurant that was the maker of the original meatloaf sandwich. I also got to do a guided wine tasting that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Next we went over to the other side of Puget Sound for pictures of the city and then over to the area near University of Washington where we went to the biggest Apple Store on this side of the Mississippi. Having the same enthusiasm for Apple that I do for Starbucks, that was amazing to see.

I’m strongly considering going to the University of Washington. More likely for graduate school than for undergraduate though.

More Northern Washington

We spent the next few days back up in Norther Washington both in Birth Bay, WA and Bellingham, WA. One of my best friends lives in Bellingham so it was a lot of fun to hang out with her and her boyfriend. We went out to dinner with them one night, got to explore the town a bit and then took a drive out into the “country” to get more awesome pictures of the surrounding area.

The next day we stayed in Birch Bay, WA and enjoyed the tourist attractions such as mopeding.

The next day we went over to Deception Pass, WA where the movie The Ring was filmed. It was completely beautiful and a great ride, I really enjoyed it. We stopped a lot to explore the area, crossed part of the bridge on food and then eventually went down to the state park to explore further.

After that we went back to Birch Bay and said our final goodbyes to this beautiful part of the country. The next morning we left early to head for the city of Forks, Washington. It was a long drive. We had to catch a ferry over and then drive another 200 or so miles. Overall the drive to Forks was much more interesting than the place itself. We got to stop in Olympic National Park and see lots of happy greenery.

Forks, WA

Even though I don’t need to give an explanation, I still will in case someone has been living under a rock for the past few years. Forks, WA is the city where Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books took place. As my Mom and I are both huge Twilight fans we found it prudent to check out this now famous town.

It was slightly disappointing because the Twilight movies are what formed both of our mental pictures of Twilight and none of the movies were actually filmed in Forks. It was still great to pay homage to the town though. We went to a store called Dazzled by Twilight which was the official Twilight gift store. We then went to La Push Indian Reservation where parts of the book were set. The cloudy foggy weather pictured in the movies is really exactly how the area looks. Finally we ate a Twilight themed dinner and settled down in our Twilight themed hotel room.

The next morning we left Forks, WA for the very long ride to Portland, OR. It was a beautiful drive through the forest, lakes, rivers, streams, mountains, etc. It looked very Twilighty the whole way and I’m thankful to have been forced to take the scenic route rather than a freeway.

Portland, OR

This was a very disappointing city. It was filled with transients, smelled like urine and just seemed dirty. At first look it was a lot like San Francisco (in the good ways) but we just didn’t have a good experience. Everyone told us different things to see which ultimately had us going back and forth across the city without actually seeing anything.

The key thing that we got to see was VooDoo Donuts (very over rated) and a few breweries.

At our hotel, the Marriott Courtyard at Lloyd Center, I got AMAZING service from the bartender Lacy. She is the one good thing I could really say about Portland, very nice people. Lacy made me rethink my negative experience and I now plan to revisit Portland someday to give it another chance.

Being a true native who grows her own crops and believes in everything local, Lacy gave me an amazing guided tasting of the hotel’s microbrew beers which I then bought several glasses of and had a great night.

We had a very long drive back down to Vacaville, CA. Pretty much drove all day.

San Francisco, CA

Not much to talk about in San Francisco. It’s still my favorite city, but I just didn’t have a great experience. Was grieving about some love life issues and stayed in a piece of shit hotel (Inn at the Opera by Shell Vacations) which I highly recommend you steer clear of. We went out drinking at a great local bar called Martuni and I had a little bit too much fun and regretted it the next day.

San Francisco would have been much better if we would have: 1) been in a nicer hotel like we are used to (Marriott all the way), 2) had been with my friend Carrie, 3) had not gone out drinking and 4) wouldn’t have had love life problems.

The Trip Home

It’s pretty much tied between Olympic National Park and Highway 1 (CA Coastal Highway) on the way home. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

In Conclusion

Canada is completely beautiful and better than the US in pretty much every way except for the sales tax and slower speed limit. The people are nicer, they drive better, the country is cleaner and they have a more laid back way of life.

Northern Washington is a beautiful place with beautiful weather. I know a lot of people complain about the rain and the perpetual fog but we didn’t really find it inconvenient. In fact I prefer it to San Diego weather. It would have been nice to see the sun (we didn’t see it all week) but it was still beautiful nonetheless.

Seattle was simply amazing. I love it. I want to go back and I wouldn’t mind living there

Forks was a bummer. It would have been a lot more interesting if I hadn’t seen the Twilight movies and was going with my mind’s eye from the books.

Portland was not a good experience except for the amazing bartender Lacy.

San Francisco was not what it usually was, but that is not the city’s fault.

The trip home was beautiful and scenic.