Tween Peaks

Riding through Washington State was enjoyable. We have chosen smaller roads which were running through forests most of the time. Beautiful cedar and ponderosa trees were all around, very tall and beautiful. For the first time in my life, I have understood people who are hugging trees. I wanted to do the same myself.

With every passing mile, we were closer to the final destination for the second main event of our trip, the Twin Peaks. The beauty of riding a motorcycle on long trips is that one has a lot of time to be with himself and his thoughts. And the thoughts can get you in the past.  I was remembering the nineties and the time when Twin Peaks was broadcasted for the first time on national television in former Yugoslavia.  Almost everybody was watching it week by week. The main question was who killed Laura Palmer? David Lynch, the director, was telling this story on a very slow pace, which is his trademark.  The story was following numerous characters, and each and every one of them was unique and strange in its own way.  Each of us had our favorite characters but all of us were admiring Inspector Cooper and we all were in love with Dona, Shelly, Audrey, Norma, Boby, Lucy, goofy deputy Andy and list goes on and on.

The first stop in our Twin Peaks tour was Kiana Lodge in Poulsbo. Most of the Twin Peaks was filmed in Snoqualmie and North Bend area, southeast from Seattle, but all scenes from inside the Great Northern Hotel were filmed in Kiana Lodge. This is the hardest of all Twin Peaks places to visit. Kiana Lodge is a privately owned banquet venue rented for special events. If there are no events, it might be closed. If there is an event, then security may not let us in. The significance of this location, other than its interior, is a huge log on the beach where Laura Palmer’s body was found and the house of Pete Martell who found her body.

When we arrived at the Kiana Lodge, the gate was open.  The wedding party was going on. We will have to crush the wedding if we want to see the lodge. It was hard not to be noticed in our riding outfits. With heavy motorcycle gear everybody will know that we don’t belong there, but we took our chance. We walked in with confidence and went straight to the log. On the way there, we said a few friendly hellos, and we nogged our heads a few times, too. That looked very easy.  We took a few pictures of the log and outside of the lodge.

Then we went inside the lodge. The lodge was empty, ideal to take a few more pictures.

On our way out, some lady stopped us and asked us what we were doing at this private party. Zoran was quick to answer that we had made a wrong turn and that we were going out right away, and then we left.  Mission accomplished. We are ready to move on.
Just north of the Kiana lodge is one of the ports of the Seattle local ferry system. We have reduced at least one hour of riding by taking a ferry to Seattle. There were about ten motorcycles in line for the ferry. Three or four of them were ridden by young women. It is very refreshing to see that both genders of the younger generations are taking on motorcycling.

The next stop, final for the day, was the Salish Lodge and Spa, which was the Great Northern Hotel in the TV series.  The hotel is right next to the famous Snoqualmie Falls, and our room overlooks it. What a wonderful place to stay. Best room in a hotel.

While making arrangements for the room the day before Zoran mentioned that we are fans of Twin Peaks and to our surprise, when we arrived, on the table was the log lady log, key chain of Inspector Cooper’s room and damn good piece of pie. What a way to end the day.

Morning came fast. The plan is to have breakfast in Double R diner, which is Twede’s café in normal life. But first, we visited a local souvenir store to find Twin Peaks memorabilia. To our surprise, Twin Peaks stuff was not all over us. We had to ask if they had some. Sure, they had it, but it was not much. And the same happened wherever we were going all day, except Double R diner.
Double R diner is located next to the railroad crossing, and this is where the name is coming from. We have parked our motorcycles in front of the restaurant. The wait to get seated is about thirty minutes, just enough time to take some photos of the diner.

The interior of the restaurant was very familiar to us. It looked exactly same as thirty years ago when the series was filmed.  It looked like Norma and Shelly would show up at any moment. Our waitress was not Peggy Lipton i.e. Norma. It was Julia. She was extremely friendly. First, we had a coffee in RR cups. It was a damn good coffee as inspector Cooper described it many times in series.

My breakfast was enormous. I wouldn’t be able to finish it in four days. I was able to finish one quarter. I had to leave some room for the famous cherry pie.

Before we entered the restaurant, I noticed an advertisement in the window of the restaurant written in the Russian language. When I asked Julia how they have the ad in Russian language in the window, she told me that they have a lot of Eastern Europeans in the area. And then she said, to Zoran’s and to my surprise that her godfather is Vojislav Kokeza, Serbian, and that he owns the Snoqualmie Falls Brewery and the restaurant just a few miles from Double R restaurant.  Also, she said there is a Serbian Orthodox Church St Sava nearby. The church where she goes. Small world.

We had to change our plan. The next stop is Snoqualmie Falls brewery. It took us just three minutes to get there. Vojislav was not there, but his son Alex was there. When I asked him in Serbian how he was doing, he made a huge smile and continued the conversation in Serbian. He was born in Belgrade but moved to the USA as a baby. He offered us a few flights of their beers, and all of them were awesome. Before we left, he gave us a few canes to take with us for later, for the evening in our room. Always great to see your countrymen, especially in the places where you don’t expect to see them.

The Twin Peaks Sheriff station and Ronnete’s bridge are very close to each other, just outside of Snoqualmie. We stopped at the bridge first. The bridge was not part of the series. It was filmed in the movie Fire Walk with Me. Ronnete Pulaski was found there.

The Twin Peaks Sheriff station today is a rally driving school DirtFish. The building looks different due to different paintings, but you can still recognize it. I would like to attend the rally driving training. This would be a lot of fun.

Not far from there is the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign location. Unfortunately, the sign was removed a long time ago. We didn’t have luck with the weather. Clouds were covering Twin Peaks all the time during our stay in the area, and we haven’t been able to take a good photo of them. We have tried several times in two days.

We stopped at Salish Lodge and Spa to take pictures of the falls. This is a legendary place and one of the most beautiful in all of Washington.

Fall City is just north of Snoqualmie. In Twin Peaks two locations were filmed. The Roadhouse grill and Big Ed’s gas station. Unfortunately, the Roadhouse was closed and Big Ed gas station is a private building so we were able to take only photos of buildings.

This was the day Zoran and I planned for many years. I am very happy that we were able to do it. One thing both of us noticed. The whole Twin Peaks thing is not commercialized at all. There are still a number of fans that are visiting the area but all is done with measure and without any glamour. Locals still remember the time when the series was filmed and every year they celebrate the Twin Peaks Day, every February 24th, the day when inspector Cooper came to Twin Peaks.