disappointed
debgeisler's benefit:Continuing into Long Beach, we drove past the front door to circle around to the parking area. I saw with dismay that the building was empty and a "closed" sign was on the door. Oh, no! Had they gone out of business? We've seen a lot of places busted by the economic downturn, and even those that are open were looking sparse. But the adjacent amusement rides, which I thought were owned by the same people, were still running.
Lisa almost just turned around and headed out, but we did need to at least stop and use the restrooms, so we had a look at the building. A hand-lettered sign said, "Closed due to fire in kite shop." You could see that the kite shop in the adjoining building space had burned and taken severe damage. We inquired at the ticket stand of the Tilt-a-Whirl next door if the pinball palace was closed for good. To our relief, they said that they'd simply had to clear all of the machines out of space so they could tear out the carpet and repair the damage and repaint the place, and that they expected to reopen in a couple of weeks.
That didn't do us any good, but at least we expect they plan to reopen, so we'll not write them off and will come by again the next time our travels take us near this southwestern corner of Washington.