I passed a big purple shop called the Cranberry Castle. It was blue and white with a picture of waves on it. Long Beach, Washington, is toward the southern end of a little isthmus that sticks up off the bottom of the state like a hook. It's a beach resort town. I saw go cart tracks and miniature golf and antique stores and T-shirt shops and confectioneries and dozens of motels and moped rentals and horse rides.
Long Beach is also some kind of kiting Mecca.
There are kite shops and kite postcards everywhere, and I think they have some annual kite competition. There is also a kite museum, but I didn't go. It's also a friendly, personal town, if the business names are any indication. Marsh's Free Museum was my destination, that and the World's Largest Frying Pan across the street. The women at the register in Marsh's told me that wasn't the real frying pan.