For All You Twin Peaks Fans...

With our plans to head down and see Mount Rainier yesterday postponed until this morning, Steph and I thought it'd be fun to head west to a town called North Bend where the cult TV series "Twin Peaks" was filmed. There you'll find the cafe that was made famous by the show, along with a few of the other locations around town that were used throughout the series. I had never actually watched the show, so besides being a David Lynch creation and being incredibly strange, I honestly didn't know much about it. Steph on the other hand, along with her sister Tiffany, were fans, so this was one of the main highlights of the trip for her. After all, I had my Goonies moment, she needed her Twin Peaks fix. And it ended up being a really fun time.

It was about a 45 minute drive east from our hotel. We could tell that we were heading into the mountains, which loomed above us, but unfortunately, the cloud cover was so thick and low that it was hard to get a good view of the peaks. Only the bottom of the snow lines were visible. Everything above that disappeared into the mist.

We got into North Bend and filled up on gas, then headed directly to the cafe. Apparently it's extremely different inside and from the pictures on the wall, you can definitely see how. Unfortunately in the year 2000, there was a large fire, started by arson, that gutted the entire cafe, so it was remodeled and rebuilt, but the 60's retro wooden feel has completely disappeared and given way to more of a 50's diner look, with electric blues and reds. The layout is basically the same though, so if you use your imagination, you can see how it originally felt.

Steph had to get her "damn fine cup of coffee" and cherry pie, a pair of which was also made famous in the the show, and slowly sipped away, taking in the entire atmosphere. There were a lot of people in the cafe at the time, mostly all locals, and I couldn't help but notice how much food they were getting. When this place gives you a plate of hash browns and eggs, they aren't kidding. It was more breakfast food that I'd ever be comfortable eating...at least three meals on one plate. It was absolutely ridiculous, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't look good. I mean, who can pass up a huge plate of breakfast skunk?




After our coffee and pie, Steph and I drove around, looking for a few of the other locations in town. The cafe sold maps for $2, and of course Steph bought one, but we both had to laugh at the ridiculousness of its quality. With everything available to us today, you'd think that it wouldn't be hard to produce a quality map with a few locations drawn in, right? Nope, think again. I swear to God, it's like they had a local contest at the elementary school for whomever could produce the best map of Twin Peaks locations. It was like it was seriously drawn by a Kindergarten student...in crayon. I wish I had a picture of this thing. They were honestly selling them...and yes, like I said before...Steph bought one. We are complete suckers.

After our drive and checking out a few of the locations around town (not too much more besides the cafe and the opening credits) we decided to head back towards Seattle and get in some hiking in the parks. We said good-bye to Twin Peaks (North Bend) and headed west back to Seattle and straight into Discovery Park.