Sunday Morning Coffee — October 5, 2025 (September 30, 2018) — It’s Good to Finally Be Home
By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV.
If you are looking for something original today with your Sunday Morning Coffee well you’ve come to the wrong place. Nothing this week. Took a break. I used about everything I had in last Sunday’s Scramble. Plus, I knew this would be a tough week with the Yom Kippur holiday and the 24 hour fast that came with it. Actually ours was 26 hours finishing dinner at home before sunset on Wednesday night then spent virtually all day in synagogue on Thursday. In spite of gnarly hunger pangs the holiday turned out to be rewarding. Our clergy leaders at Temple Sinai, Rabbi Ilana Baden and Cantor David Perper, were marvelous keeping our attention to song and prayer and not famish. Finally at seven o’clock Thursday evening the bagels, lox, cream cheese, egg and tuna salad spread was a site for sore stomachs. About 200 of them. And then the rugelach for dessert tasted so much sweeter when the phone pinged alerting the Yankees just eliminated the Red Sox in the MLB playoffs.
So today, instead of originality, we will opt for calendar timing and go back a few years to how Andi and I got to this desert outpost in the first place.
I got a notice from my Facebook account a few days ago that it was seven years ago, precisely September 25, 2018, that we relocated to Las Vegas. I had retired the previous July 1 from Medjet (Medjet.com) in Birmingham. And that was a good thing—since then business has never been better under my successor Mike Hallman’s leadership. But once again, I digress. Actually we didn’t leave Alabama for three months after I hung up the briefcase because houses, both in Birmingham and Las Vegas, became a factor. Our Alabama home was on the market much longer than expected. In fact, for 91 days. In that span we had 89 showings. I changed realtors like dirty bath towels. That house in tony the Mountain Brook burb was a great home except for one major perceived flaw— it had no back yard— instead we had built a terrace that was elevated into a forest. While that was perfect for us, if you had young kids looking for an outdoor play area this one came off the prospective list immediately. Fortunately a local divorce was in play and the soon to be ex-husband needed a place fast. He got such a deal. And now, seven years later, it’s back on the market for double what we sold it for. Looks like no yard may not be that big a deal after all.
Then we had a little hang-up on the Las Vegas end. We bought our Summerlin house in 2017 about a year before we planned to move. We then rented it to whom we thought were perfect tenants— a young couple with an infant were relocating to Vegas from Vancouver. He was a hockey player for the NHL expansion Vegas Golden Knights. Their lease ran through April 2018 which was ideal for us as we planned some major renovations before we moved in. Except, the Golden Knights had a miracle first season making the Stanley Cup finals. He asked to stay until the playoffs were over. I said too bad, but Andi said it was the right thing to do. She again prevailed. The renters finally left in mid-June, after losing the Cup to Washington, which backed up our construction about three months. As it turned out after all, the delay in selling in Birmingham was fortuitous.
If for some reason you are still with me, and I can’t imagine why, we finally loaded Andi’s Jeep, our chows Ibis and Deuce in tow and headed out. Back then Sunday Morning Coffee was only on Facebook and in the reminder I got last week, Facebook also sent along the SMC I wrote about the journey from September 30, 2018. So if you are one of those who has to have SMC with your coffee:
It was late Monday afternoon (9/24/18) and we were making better time than I would have guessed. The tedium of the West Texas panhandle turned into the magnificent rock formations and colors of New Mexico. The posh Best Western was awaiting us sixty miles across I-40 in Santa Rosa, right smack on Route 66 where Tod Stiles and Buz Murdoch, err Martin Milner and George Maharis, once played. If you remember them you are old. Very old.
Since ‘Route 66’ was canceled by CBS in 1964 not much happens in Santa Rosa anymore. The locals are proud that you can’t buy a newspaper anywhere in town. If something happened, it would be news. But nothing ever happens in the town of 3,000. Not even fake news.
Andi’s Grand Cherokee was jammed tight with about everything you can imagine, not the least of which were Ibis and Deuce crunched in the back seat with cushions under and over them. Ibis at ninety pounds and Deuce at seventy, didn’t leave much room for cushions either. We barely had room for Aunt Edna on the roof.
My car was shipped and left three days before us, due in Vegas just about the time we walked into Annie’s Diner of Santa Rosa for dinner. The Monday evening special was the ‘Thanksgiving Dinner,’ but our eighteen-year-old waitress saw no humor in me asking if September 24 was Thanksgiving in Santa Rosa. “No it’s not,” she deadpanned, “Thanksgiving is in November.” Thank you for the clarification.
Our furniture left Friday, two days before we did. It was due on Tuesday, two days before I figured we would arrive. Pulling out of Birmingham on Sunday midday for our retirement relocation in Summerlin a dozen or so miles northwest of Las Vegas, we planned on about four days on the road to cover the eighteen hundred miles with arrival Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Ideally the car retrieval and furniture placement was left in the capable hands of a friend and now neighbor, Kim Barron as we didn’t plan to be there before it arrived.
What I didn’t realize before we stopped the first night in Clarksville, Arkansas, was that Andi had Quality Inn status. It’s amazing what you can still learn about a gal after being married for twenty-seven years. Something about all those trips home to western Kentucky and the Quality Inn being the Ritz of Paducah. No doubt we are blessed as her elite status got us upgraded to a nice corner room in Arkansas overlooking the Walmart fulfillment center. I felt like a player.
Couldn’t wait to get out of the Quality Inn so we left early and by Monday night we already rolled through Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City and Amarillo, turning down the temptation for the 72-ounce ribeye at The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, which is free if you can eat the whole thing within an hour. If not the tab is $72. Ibis was drooling to take the challenge.
Come Tuesday the final metro area on our TripTix was Albuquerque and as I lay on a not-so-heavenly-bed in Santa Rosa Monday night, it hit me that after forty-some-odd-years traveling as part of my career, I had never been to ABQ. Ever since Walter White was killed I don’t know anybody in Albuquerque either. Or so I thought.
Saturday, three days earlier, I got a call from our car hauler, Gregory, that his rig had broken down in Albuquerque and he had no idea how long he would be there but “don’t plan on seeing your car soon.”
Tuesday morning as we enjoyed the trademark waffle and cold egg spread in the cozy Santa Rosa Best Western dining nook, Raymond, our crusty but likable United Van Lines driver, phoned to tell us he was in Moriarty, New Mexico, about an hour past Santa Rosa and an hour from Albuquerque and like Gregory, was broken down. Moriarty, NM, is a good place to be stranded because it’s not everywhere you can find Sally’s Massage and Truck Stop with massages for only $29.99. Or so says the billboard. Raymond, with all our belongings, had no idea how long it would be before his rig was running again; he first had to be towed forty miles into ABQ where I suggested he meet Gregory for a bite to eat. He, like the Thanksgiving dinner waitress, didn’t quite see the humor.
In the meantime as we said goodbye to Route 66, we were eleven hours from Vegas and determined to finish the trip that day. We drove six hours the first day and ten the second, so an eleven hour day was certainly in the cards. I drove about two-thirds of the time, Andi the balance. Andi never followed a car she didn’t want to tailgate, just closely enough to make sure their license plate registration tag was valid.
We went through Albuquerque just past nine on Tuesday morning, now only nine hours and a time zone away from Nevada. I tipped my cap to the memory of Walter White, a half-assed high school chemistry teacher and a world class meth producer. I also gave a wave to my car and our furniture disabled somewhere along the highway.
We turned down a lot of temptation en route. It would have been easy to divert in Henrietta, Oklahoma, to see Troy Aikman’s boyhood home or the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague in New Mexico; or we could have just taken it easy standin’ on a corner when we got to Winslow, Arizona, but I really didn’t think that was such a fine sight to see.
So, we pushed on. Two nights in a Quality Inn and Best Western was enough to say let’s get ‘home’ even though we had no furniture and had never been ‘home’ before.
We made Vegas late Tuesday afternoon, despite traveling the last sixty miles on state highway 93, just east of Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, with a hole in our right rear tire that was spewing air faster than a Lindsey Graham diatribe. We arrived at an empty house. No furniture. No furniture in sight, either. Raymond was still stranded in Albuquerque. Andi ran to Target to grab a queen size air mattress for $75 which Ibis and Deuce immediately claimed. Andi and I were on two dog cushions on either side of them. Life does have its priorities, but it was still better than the Best Western in Santa Rosa.
Ibis and Deuce took the trip like champions. Not a peep and not one fight or squabble to break up like you’d find between most nine and two-year-olds. Whenever they needed to do their thing, every couple of hours, they’d give us a throaty ‘Hupff’ and we’d find a spot to pull over. Andi caught on to the scheme and started ‘Hupffing’ every thirty minutes.
We covered the eighteen hundred miles in two and a half days and twenty-seven hours driving time when we finally parked in our new driveway Tuesday evening. I hate long drives, but I have to admit this one wasn’t bad at all, in fact almost therapeutic. My car finally arrived on Thursday and Raymond got the van rolling again and was at the house with all of our belongs at seven on Friday morning.
At least he had a sense of humor. I asked him about Sally’s $29.99 massage when he was stranded in Moriarty.
“Ah, that’s entry level,” Raymond smiled. “ For that price, it’s only a foot massage.”
Hupff, it’s good to finally be ‘home.’
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger
What a saga and the details are illuminating. Don’t move again.
I have always been curious about your choice of Las Vegas as a retirement home. Is that explained in an earlier SMC piece? If so Id like to read it. Hope your spirits are not too down after yesterday's beat down of the Yanks. Very good description of your journey and loved the pics of the pups.