Over the last 10 years that I have been involved with the production of the Seattle International Comedy Competition, I have found myself waking up at the Hallmark Inn on the morning of Thanksgiving. This would be a real treat if I had family in Moses Lake or perhaps any other day of the year. But my family and friends are 4 hours West in Seattle. By the time I wake up, pack up the laptop and the score sheets, have breakfast and hit the road and drive the four hours, it's sometime between 3-6 PM and most Thanksgiving plans are fairly disrupted.
So for more times than I really want to mention, I have had breakfast at Cades, the restaurant at the Hallmark Inn in Moses Lake. It's a fine place and the food is fantastic, but I long for a change and when I say change I don't mean eating at the Shari's across the street. Because it is four hours from Seattle, it's hard to convince anyone who is familiar with Moses Lake who doesn't have a reason to be there to wake up there with you on Thanksgiving morning, so this means (cue the violins) I wake up alone on Thanksgiving.
This year things were different.
This year on the night before Thanksgiving, we did a show in Newport, Oregon. This is a lovely and I do mean lovely resort town on the beautiful Oregon Coast only five short hours from Seattle. I woke up in a suite with a fireplace and a fire burning away with a gorgeous unobstructed view out of my balcony of the ocean at the Elizabeth Street Inn in a situation that was so romantic that it almost screams the perfect place for a weekend getaway. And yes, because it is so far away and most people have plans with family and friends, I woke up alone.
At least the scenery changed.
So I packed up my stuff while Casablanca was playing on TV feeling that I was thankful that at least I did not wake up in Moses Lake having breakfast at a Hallmark Inn and I headed out to the car for the long drive back to Seattle with the producer of the Comedy Competition, the same way I have many a Thanksgiving morning.
But first he wanted to stop for breakfast.
We went to the first place that was open and on Thanksgiving that can be a chore. But we were in luck. There is a fine restaurant in the hotel next door to the Elizabeth Inn. In fact, the hotel is naturally, a Hallmark Inn. That's right, the same chain (there's another location in Cannon Beach, OR), with the same menu choices in the restaurant in Moses Lake.
