Escape from reality is something sought by a majority of society. Whether we read a book, watch a movie or tv show, or play video games we are all looking for a break. Many people even spend a large percentage of their time achieving this goal. Life is so mundane in reality that we have to live other lives within our mind. It is a recent addition to the needs of being human- we used to be too busy working to live to delve into creative arts. Now we don’t only create alternative worlds, we live in other’s creations.
Today was a day where I would mesh both worlds together. A few of the fantasy worlds that I enjoyed as a guilty pleasure when I needed a break from the daily grind, and the real world, were about to come together. As I left Seattle I decided to leave in the only way a Grey’s Anatomy character would: On a ferry boat.
My Jeep is the epitome of adventure, and I have been many places in it. So far I have driven on snow, rocks, roads, mountains, deserts and the great plains. Today my Jeep would accomplish something it had never experienced before: it would drive onto a boat and ferry across the bay. I pulled into line at the Fauntleroy terminal where I would board the ship. I enjoyed some more “No Woman” cheese from Seattle’s Beecher’s cheese (courtesy of a relative I stayed with in Seattle) as I waited in line.
Boarding a ferry is kind of like parking at a big event. They line you up in order and direct you into a specific line where you will park as close as possible to the car in front of you. The instant everyone parks they exit and run up to the top deck where they can shelter from the cooler weather and enjoy concessions. I stayed on the lower deck for a while, enjoying the solitude and feeling the sea breeze. I imagined that Meridith enjoyed the same breeze as she stood on the ferry with Derrick. I think sometimes we spend so much time enjoying these alternate realities we forget that these characters aren’t real…they feel real.
I decided to head up to the concession to get a cup of hot tea and explore the rest of the ferry boat. I could stand at the antiqued controls of the boat just like I was the captain. As I sipped my coffee I took in the view of the water rushing away behind me. On the back wall a plaque was placed in memory of the former captain of this ship. Captain David Summerfield Moon was the former first officer, he died in June of 1977 when he went down with his ship in Alaska. The plaque offered no details of the story, but I imagined it to be one of bittersweet courage. A man surely born a sailor and died a sailor.
After deboarding the ferry boat I followed the coast of Washington, circling around Olympic National Park until I reached the town of Forks. Seattle held the familiarity of the Grey’s Anatomy set without announcing it’s significance. It made the illusion of being a part of the fairy tale more real. Forks, however, announced it’s new found fame every opportunity it had. Businesses left and right claimed to be the place to get Twilight merchandise, and a Twilight fan store on the main road played the theme music on loud speakers into the street.
While I had also become a victim of the Twilight series, so enraptured by the story that I read all four books within two weeks of each other, this Forks was not the one I had in my head. The commercialism had destroyed my fantasy world when it came to Forks. All I could think about is how annoyed the residents of Forks must be with all of the Twilight fans coming to visit. While I was excited to visit Forks because I could see the real life place that one of my fairy tales took place in, I was a little embarrassed to admit I was a fan to anyone.
I knew I had to do laundry, so I found the only laundry mat in Forks and sat up shop while my attire swirled in the triple load washers. I went through pictures and looked up some more information on my campsite for the night: Bogachiel State Park . While the scent of gain filled the room as my clothes went through the dryer I chatted with a local girl who was there doing laundry as well.
I went to the local grocery store hoping to get some local cherries. Surely they would be cheaper here in Washington than back home in the midwest. I was disappointed to see that they were $10.99 per lb, so I bought some grapes instead, along with some wines. I was about to have a gourmet meal cooked over a campfire.
Bogachiel State Park was a lot like the forest I imagined Bella and Edward wandering through the rain forest. Everything was so green, moss clinging to the tree trunks, very little of the ground wasn’t covered in ferns or moss. It was, just as the main character of Twilight first described it, an alien world. Too green to be real.
In the green shrubs I found these salmon-colored berries that looked a lot like raspberries. I decided to try them even though I didn’t know what they were. They weren’t too flavorful, a bit more bland than the raspberries I usually enjoyed. I later found out they were unoriginally called “salmon berries” and were perfectly fine to eat. Let me tell you that I only tried a couple berries and was being a bit adventurous…and I do not recommend anyone try any wild fruits or plants unless they can clearly identify it. As so many television shows and commercials state, “Do not try this at home”.
For my dinner I cooked some leftover shortribs over the open fire, and enjoyed some Prosecco sparkling wine in my new Seahawks glass I had purchased the day before in Seattle. I chatted with my camp neighbors, two bicyclists that had been on the road for over a week already, and one of them dried their damp sweatshirt over my fire. There isn’t much room for firewood on a bike. It was pleasant to have some nice neighbors and I shared my ribs with them since I had way more than I could eat myself.
I then settled down for the night in my tent, in the dark underneath the shelter of the tall redwood trees covered in green moss. The reality of the worlds I escaped to from time to time in book and television were certainly different than the fantasy version, but they still held a mystique. In a lot of ways, Seattle and Forks both were better in real life than in the mind. The fantasy worlds had met reality today and as the dark closed in it was time for me to create my own fantasy world. Tomorrow brings more reality- although to be honest, I’m beginning to think the reality of this summer is even greater than any fantasy world I could escape to.
-Nicole
