We walk into a bar without vampires (or werewolves)

Blakeslee’s Bar and Grill, Forks, Washington
I tried to read Twilight. I made it a little over two pages.

The Stephenie Meyer books came out while I was working in youth ministry, and some of the kids (more precisely, some of the girls) in the group were reading them. I thought it would be helpful to do the research. And I loved vampire lore. Dracula is a great novel. I loved Dark Shadows with the vampire Barnabas Collins when I was a kid and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an adult. The Lost Boys and Near Dark are films that get a thumbs up from me. But these glittery vampires… Not so much.

I attempted the first novel in the series, but it was boring and seemed, well, stupid. I read the synopsis of the book and its sequels on Wikipedia. The stupidness increased. Sorry, Twilight fans, vampires who drink animal blood and sparkle in the sunlight don’t fit with the lore I’ve loved through the years.

I bring this all up because we went to Forks, the setting for the Twilight books and films, for our bar visit this week. Fans of the books have apparently flocked to visit the home of the heroine Bella Swan, the vampire Edward Cullen, and werewolf Jacob Black, but nothing we saw around town seemed to encourage the fans. We saw one hotel with a sign that read “Edward Cullen didn’t sleep here.” It was all very different from Roslyn, the town we visited last week, which embraces its fictional alter ego, Cicely, Alaska.

Earlier that day, we’d visited the furthest west church we could find, and Forks was more or less on the way home. We could only find one bar in town, so we went to Blakeslee’s Bar and Grill for dinner. (We heard that there’d been another bar, The Smokehouse, until a couple of years ago, but it is no more.)

We decided to not ask anyone at Blakeslee’s about Twilight because we didn’t want to be thought of as people who cared about Twilight.

The Seahawks game was over by the time we arrived, people were still watching football. I heard a guy at the bar say, “I’m just here to watch the Cowboys game.” Dallas was playing Jacksonville. (“Bortles!” That’s a reference for those who watch The Good Place. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it.)

There were no Twilight references in the bar decor. There was a lot about the NFL (particularly Seahawks “12”) and beer and Sasquatch. But no sparkling vampires.

After we sat at the bar and got our menus, I went with the beef dip but Mindy went with something a little more unusual. That morning on the way to church, we’d seen a herd of elk, so naturally Mindy decided she needed to try the elk burger. I asked about the Schilling Cider on tap, and the bartender said she’d have to check what flavor was available. “I’m not sure what the flavor is. We had grapefruit chill last week.” Turned this week’s flavor was ginger. It was good. The food was good as well.

Our bartender was wearing a Blakeslee's t-shirt that indicated that bar rules were the same as preschool rules (among them, wet your pants and you go home).

Her shift was ending, but Darci was washing glasses behind the bar, and we saw an opportunity to ask our two questions. When we asked, “What makes for a good bar?” She responded, “Good company, good service.” I asked for more details on what makes for good service, and she said, “It’s attention to customers. Having what they want, when they want it. And watching out for sobriety.” She talked about the importance of keeping people from driving under the influence. “Sooner or later, you’ll get it.” That’s one of the trickier parts of bartending as well as one of the most important responsibilities of the job.

We asked our second question, “What makes for a good church?” “I don’t go,” Darci answered, but she went on to say it would be important that people in the church weren’t judgmental. “If I went, people would say you better come up to be saved.” Mindy and Darci talked about churches in small towns where everyone knows everyone. It makes church life a little different than in more urban areas (Do the vampires of Twilight go to church? Go to bars? Happy to remain in ignorance of these things.)

I plan to live the rest of my life without reading a Twilight book or watching a Twilight movie, but I’m glad we stopped in Forks. I’m particularly glad we went to Blakeslee’s Bar and Grill where we could enjoy its utter lack of sparkly vampires.