Twilight Fans Flock to Forks, Washington
The most popular town in America Forks, Washington. With a population of a little over 3 thousand, the wettest place in the Olympic Peninsula, has grown into an overnight success.
Last year, 2008, was the town’s biggest tourism year ever and residents say carloads of visitors, mostly giddy teenage girls, are showing up every weekend these days.
Marcia Bingham, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said the town’s Twilight-inspired turnaround has been nothing short of miraculous.
“We’ve probably had more than 100 people a day,” Bingham told the Associated Press as van after van of tourists pulled up in front of the town’s visitor center.
Forks is where the smouldering romance between vampire Edward Cullen, played by British actor Robert Pattinson, and his high-school girlfriend Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, unfolds.
Forks has welcomed the new visitors with open arms.
Local restaurants are serving special “Twilight” treats, like Bella burgers at Sully’s Burgers in town, or Bella Berry milkshakes.
Fans buy up bumper stickers or one of the stacks of t-shirts behind every counter that read “Vampires love Forks”, or baseball caps emblazoned with the little town’s name.
On the town’s main drag, signs in store windows read “We love Edward and Bella.”
On Bella’s fictional birthday last year, the town held a “vampire party”, where almost 1,000 young girls attended. Residents said they’d never seen more women in Forks in the history of the rainy little town.
Town entrepreneurs have started “Twilight tours” that take in all the key spots in the books and the movies — places like Bella and Edward’s houses, the police station where Bella’s father works, the hospital where Edward’s father is a doctor, or the field where the vampires like to play baseball.
Check out the entire story at CNN.com
