2003 Hummer H2

2003 Hummer H2

I've owned a handful of Hummer's, but this one was the first.  I bought this H2 in early 2003, just a few months after they came out.  I thought they were extremely cool and they were generating a lot of buzz as the new poster child for the anti-SUV liberals.  They couldn't miss mine in yellow either.

The airplane-style shifter on the console was a nice touch to me.  Hummer's had a tough guy design, but really shared absolutely nothing with its H1 big brother.  The H2 was smooth and quiet and didn't feel like an off-road vehicle at all.

I never got a chance to off-road this one in fact.  It would have been fine due to its tires and ground clearance, but these were really urban warriors.

My biggest complaint about the H2 is that, for a large SUV, it had very little rear cargo space.  If you put the 3rd row seats in, it was basically nothing.  Getting the spare mounted on the rear would help immensely, but it's still nothing compared to a Suburban, for example.

The interior was surprisingly comfortable.  Mine was pretty much fully loaded with options such as heated seats front and rear and even a built in air compressor (which I never used).

It also had a sunroof and the period popular, but hardly used, OnStar system.  All in all I found the H2 to be a very well designed and great looking truck.  If style and comfort were important to you it was hard to beat.  If you needed more utility out of your SUV, you should have looked elsewhere.  

So should you buy a used one today?  It depends.  They made these until 2009, and they produced quite a few of them.  They aren't as cheap as a similar year Suburban, but they aren't yet collectible either.  If you're buying one for transportation, I would look for something else.  You're going to pay twice what you would for the aforementioned Suburban and this 6000 pounder will get about 10mpg.  Mark my words though - these will be collectible someday.  They will become classics at some point for their unique styling and the fact they, for better or worse, symbolized a period of US history. It was a military-styled gas guzzler  unveiled right after 9/11 that drove the left coast greenies batty (a Southern Cal Hummer dealership was actually burned to the ground at one point).    

Guest House Construction: Part 18

Guest House Construction:  Part 18

As is lately the case, we can go a week or so and nothing happens on the guest house and then all of a sudden a crew will show up and blitz through something with lightning speed.  It's both frustrating and fascinating at the same time. Another fun thing that always seems to happen is that we will have perfect weather for a week or so with no progress and then a bunch of work is scheduled to happen on, let's say, Tuesday and it rains all day so nobody shows up.  In truth, we are probably right on schedule but I'd rather be ahead.  A lot has happened this week especially, so here's the progress we've made since 'Part 17'.

We had sheetrock delivered.  It's kind of interesting.  It was a truck full of sheetrock and two guys who basically carried each piece in by hand.  

They stacked it up in different areas around the house.  They even carried a ton of the stuff upstairs.  It was basically like these guys were staging for the hangers that come later.

One morning the foundation guys showed up.  They pulled all of the tension cables in the slab one last time (they have a machine) and then cut off all of the excess cable and packed the holes with mortar.  It didn't take them very long, but it was a step.

 
Another small step that occurred one afternoon was that a guy showed up to run all of the data cables.  I would have thought that the electricians would do this but apparently it's a different guy.  My builder calls him the "Low Voltage Guy".  Apparently it's a different skill set.

Next up was the very exciting step of insulation.  When you start closing up walls it starts to look more like a house.  These guys put in all of the batting insulation - and there was a lot - in a day.  They also filled all gaps with expansion foam and put the baffles in the attic.  They got a late start and ran out of light.  Since there's no power to the house yet they were working in darkness. To finish, they turned their big truck facing the garage and used the headlights to finish up.  They'll come back and blow in the remaining insulation after sheetrock is hung.

While all this is going on, you have to get inspections for certain things from time to time.  League City is a little inspection happy (by Texas standards anyway) but they do them quickly and we've passed every one.  Plumbing, gas lines, HVAC, electrical, framing, insulation - it all gets inspected before the walls get sealed up.

We were told that the guys were coming to hang sheetrock on Tuesday.  We had decided that there was one interior wall that needed to be soundproofed to a degree.  We heard that foam board would do a decent job so we hit up Lowe's after dinner and picked up four 8X4 sheets of the stuff, which had to ride home on all of our heads.

The sheetrock guys showed up and man did they fly through this step.  They had a crew of 6 or 7 and they worked all day.  I think they would have finished completely but they ran out of sheetrock.  

Here's the garage which shows how they were just short on materials.  This is probably the most exciting thing since framing.  It really starts to look like a house with sheetrock up.  

Grandma, Samantha, and Branelle checking out the Man Cave - Mantopia - Manetarium - Situation Room - House of Scott - No Lady Lounge - FOB Albatross.......or whatever I end up naming it.  I can't really keep them out yet since there's no door (and I'm positive I'm going to need Nel to help me carry all kinds of things up there).

I'll probably give this its own blog series, but the pool guys came out and staked out the pool for location approval.  The yard was so wet from rain that there's no way they can get started, but maybe next week.

2001 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro

2001 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro

The random generator has selected this A4 for me tonight.  This will be a short one because it's not that exciting of a car and I'm a little busy this evening.  

I've owned a handful of these A4s over the years, but this was the nicest.  It was fairly new when I got it and had around 35K miles on it if I remember correctly. That said, I couldn't get rid of it fast enough.  It had previously been owned by a smoker!  I got fooled when I bought it - car dealers are clever at masking smells. It always comes back though.  I would spray things in this car and let it bake for days.  I tried shooting things that smelled good like vanilla in the ducts and anywhere else I could think of but all I got was smoky vanilla.  I don't remember how I finally sold it but I was thrilled to have it gone.  It was a shame too, because it was a very nice driving car.  I prefer the V6 in these, but other than that it was great.

 
I've since learned how to spot (or smell) tricks that people use to mask smoker cars and have gotten pretty good at avoiding them.  If you're a non-smoker like I am, buying a car that's been smoked in is not an option.  It gets on your clothes and even leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Berchtesgaden

100 Places To See (and take a selfie at) Before You Die:

Berchtesgaden

Bavarian Region, Germany

Some of our '100 Places' are things to actually see (Leaning Tower of Pisa) while others are more places to go and experience (Big Ben is really more about London in general).  Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps of Germany is really a lot of things to see and do in a place that you should really experience. As usual, I'm not going to bore you with details from Wikipedia, but I'll tell you what I think about a place I've been to a few times.

Berchtesgaden is tucked away in the far southeastern corner of Germany.  It's not far from Munich, a great city to visit in its own right, but it's much closer to Salzburg just across the Austrian border.  In fact, it's probably only about a 20 minute drive from Salzburg.  It's a recreational paradise with some history thrown in to boot.  You can spend an entire vacation here and I think you'd really have a good time.

Lake Konigsee is one beautiful attraction to the area.  It's small, but very deep and it's the highest lake in Germany.  It's also perhaps the cleanest.  They have all these really neat wooden boats that you can take tours on and they're all electric.  Only electric and human powered watercraft have been allowed on the lake since 1909.

There is actually a town of Berchtesgaden.  It's very German and very charming.  You can't go wrong staying here as a base for visiting all of the regional attractions, but there are some spectacular resorts in the surrounding area as well.

Branelle and I having lunch lakeside a few years ago.  As with most tourist hot spots, you won't have trouble finding places to eat or spend money.  I'll admit though that this area of Europe (Switzerland, Northern Italy, Germany, Austria, etc.) is one place where it's easier for me to forget I'm a tourist and just relax for some reason.

There is some history in the area as well.  Eagle's Nest (Kehlsteinhaus to the locals) is an interesting stop.  Presented to Hitler as a 50th birthday present, it was used for government meetings until captured during the war.  There is a bunker system down below that offers a look into Nazi pre-war history and a small museum.  You can actually walk up to Eagle's Nest, but it would take hours.  You catch a bus at the Documentation Center that follows a private road up to the base where you travel in the same rather ornate elevator that Hitler, Mussolini, Braun and many others used that runs straight up through the mountain.  It is said that Hitler hated the elevator, saying that he didn't trust it. Most likely he was a bit claustrophobic, although it's extremely large.    

Eagle's Nest today is simply a restaurant and beer garden.  The food is nothing to write home about, but the views are amazing and the historical significance is undeniable.  Once you get up to the top you can hike around and take in the entire valley below.  

I've always found it a little amusing that this place was a birthday present for Hitler, but he was afraid of heights.

There are a number of the usual outdoor activities that you can do here, including horseback riding, hiking, skiing in the winter, and boating of all kinds. There are also a few unique options such as taking a ride on the bobsled track pictured above.  We were going to go bobsledding but it was too warm and they delayed the opening of the track by a week.  

Another unique thing to do is take a tour of a salt mine.  There are a number of old salt mines in the area and most have some kind of tour.  We hit the Salzbergwerk Mine and it was really cool.  

You take a small train deep inside the mountain and then go on a guided tour that includes a trip across an underground lake and some very fast rides down these old wooden slides the miners used to get from one level to another.

The salt mines are interesting and a fun day.  A word of warning though: the tour is in German.  They have these little areas where the guide can press a button and everything he said is repeated in English, but while you're listening to that everyone else is just sitting there waiting to move on.  We appreciated our guides efforts but we just told him to do the tour in German and we'd catch on.  It was still a lot of fun.

So should you go?  Yes.  You could spend two weeks in Southern Germany and never get bored.  Berchtesgaden is a beautiful and fun location to spend some time in.  Salzburg is a great city to visit.  Munich is probably the best city to visit in Germany (unless you're into cars - then go to Stuttgart).  It's very accessible - you can rent a car and drive from place to place.  I'm partial to mountains, but regardless I'm sure you'll love your time in Bavaria.

2012

1990 - Same exact spot.  The mountains behind are probably a mile away.

2000 Nissan Xterra XE

2000 Nissan Xterra XE

This may not be a particularly interesting vehicle, but it at least has an interesting story.  I haven't owned many Nissan's, and this is the only Xterra I've had to date and I hardly drove it at all so I really can't give you much feedback on the truck to be honest.  It's kind of a funny story though so here goes.

A buddy of mine came to a dealer auction with me one time and actually bid on this Xterra while I wasn't paying attention.  No problem initially - I'd never had an Xterra, they were very popular at the time, and this one looked great!  It also seemed really cheap when I signed for it and saw what he bid.  My initial enthusiasm was short lived when I went out to inspect what I had just bought. My buddy had inadvertently purchased a base model Xterra - and I mean BASE model.  It was a two-wheel-drive with the smallest 4-cylinder motor they offered and a manual transmission.  It even had roll up windows!  It was the Xterra that you bought if you couldn't afford an Xterra but got one anyway.

On the plus side, it was remarkably clean and looked great.  I didn't want it so I tasked my friend with selling it for me - punishment for his transgression.  It hung around for a while and he kept it at his house from time to time.  This is where the story gets funny.  

My buddy was going through an unfortunate and somewhat ugly divorce at the time and his soon to be ex decided that she wanted the Xterra for some reason. We figured she was just being petty, but when they worked it into the settlement the Xterra was valued much higher than what I had in it so my friend and I worked it out and he agreed to give it to her.  It was a great deal for him because it saved him some money.  We actually had to deliver it to her attorney's office and drop off the keys.  The funniest part of the whole thing was that his ex couldn't drive a stick!  

1997 Dodge Intrepid

1997 Dodge Intrepid

The random generator has done me no favors tonight, but at least it won't take long.

This was the product of me buying a car for someone I worked with and them deciding they didn’t want it.  I don’t blame them – it was horrible.  I didn’t have a problem with the old Intrepids really.  Remember it was the late 90’s.  I actually thought they were comfortable and drove okay for as cheap as they were.  That said, this one wasn’t that nice and I fear it had had a hard life.  I don’t remember buying it and I can’t remember how or where I sold it, but it wasn’t around long and I didn’t drive it while I had it.  This was the only picture I took of the car.  Technically I owned it so it has to go in the book.  Check.

Mont Saint-Michel

100 Places To See (and take a selfie at) Before You Die

Mont Saint-Michel

Normandy Region, France

My wife tells me that as much as she loves reading about cars all the time (si), she would like to see more posts about travel. I'm way behind on these "100 Places" blogs so I'll do one of our more recently visited places:  Mont Saint-Michel.  As usual, I'm not going to give you a history lesson about the place as Wikipedia can handle that better than I can.  

MSM is the third most visited site in all of France after the Eiffel Tower and Versailles (both are on my "100 Places" list).  Unlike Versailles and Paris though, MSM is a small island, and I had read stories about the crowded nightmare it can be - this is about the widest street you'll find on the entire rock.

It's not that I hate tourist places - in fact I love them.  It's just that I hate people in general, especially in large numbers.  My plan to beat the crowds was two-fold.  First, we went in September when the numbers would not be at their summer peak.  Second, and most importantly, we spent the night on the Mont.  

I'm just going to give you a practical recounting of our night at MSM and you can take from it what you will.  The first thing to know is that you can no longer park on the causeway and walk from your car.  They've built a higher causeway and a parking lot about 1.6 miles away and they have these specially built buses that take you to and from.  They're special because they drive both directions so they don't have to turn around.  It's quick and efficient.  

Another point - MSM is not handicap friendly.  It's all stairs!  If you can't climb stairs, and lots of them, don't go.  All you'll be able to do is walk in the gate and up the main street a few hundred feet.  The best thing to see on the island is the Abbey and it's all the way at the top.  You just keep climbing and climbing until you run out of stairs.  This brings up another point about spending the night. Pack light - seriously.  We just threw what we needed for one night in a small backpack and left everything else in the car.  This is the last place you'll want to be lugging a steamer trunk around.

Once you do get to the top of the abbey the views are remarkable.  You get an amazing feel for the tidal area and you can see people that look like ants walking through the mud on tours around the island - at low tide anyway.

There are some interesting things to see inside the abbey - like most churches in Europe, they're all unique and beautiful in their own way.  There are some other smaller churches down lower that are equally interesting to visit, especially at night. 

We were up top in the late afternoon and it wasn't crowded at all.  I really enjoyed just watching the tides and the people and looking down at the rest of the island from all sides.

I keep mentioning tides.  One of the most fascinating things about MSM is that it has the highest tides in all of Europe that can rise as much as 50 feet.  Since they built the new causeway and dams in 2009, access is rarely cut off.  When we were walking in Branelle said she saw a sign warning of extremely high tides that night.  I discounted her warning, and in fact mocked it with my "tsunami" dance here.  I was wrong.

There are a number of restaurants on the island, all of them overpriced so just accept it.  We picked one and they were seating everyone facing out of the windows to watch the tide come in.  I had no interest in watching water, so I opted for a quiet table away from everyone.  I still wasn't taking this tide thing seriously.  Our waiters were really rushing and it should have been a clue.

After dinner we walked around and it was amazing!  We had the island basically to ourselves.  We walked all the way back up to the abbey and sat down on a bench watching bats and didn't see or hear another human being for 20 minutes.  These are the moments I love when traveling.  

Mont Saint-Michel is even prettier at night.  The entire island has a warm glow of lights.  We walked around for hours just exploring every nook and crannie, but we were in for a surprise when we made our way back down to the lower levels.  The tide had come in and completely covered the causeway - many people were trapped until a boat could come basically ferry them to dry land. The entry gate we had walked in earlier was about six feet under water.  It was amazing, and if I'm being honest watching the tide come in was also amazing (I know I said I had no interest in watching water, but it was really cool).  It kind of just takes over all of the dry silt, and rather quickly.  People do die from time to time when caught out on the quicksand-like mud with a fast rising tide.

The next morning, Branelle said that the tide was supposed to be really high in the AM as well.  This time I listened.  We threw everything together and hustled to get off the island.  When we got to the main gate it was already underwater and I thought we were either stuck or about to get wet.  Fortunately, there was a higher exit route that was still just dry.  We made it to the causeway by about 10 minutes!  

Here's an AP shot of the island as the tide came up to cover the causeway.  We got lucky.  In truth, we had an amazing visit to MSM.  We got to spend the night and have the place to ourselves, and we got to witness the highest tide of the year on our evening there.  

So should you go?  Absolutely!  It's a truly unique and beautiful place to visit.  I was excited about this spot and it did not disappoint.  

Should you stay overnight?  I read a number of recommendations before booking this and most people said not to waste your money.  I completely disagree.  I would say if you can afford it, do it.  I can't express to you how cool it was to explore a sight dating back to the 11th century without anyone else around.  My wife and I loved it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

   
We stayed at the Auberge Saint Pierre, but there are a number of hotels on the island, all small and unique.  Some have only one or two rooms, and most have rooms that may not be located anywhere near where the actual hotel sits. Regardless of the hotel or location, it's going to be pricey.  Our room was on the top floor of the actual hotel and was great.  It was small, but very nice and very modern with windows that overlooked the bay and a perfect bathroom and wi-fi that worked great.  We did have to climb the longest and smallest circular staircase ever to get to it but it was worth it.  

This stairway was five stories high and barely big enough for me.  See, I'm not kidding about the 'no luggage' thing.  Definitely put Mont Saint-Michel on your own "100 Places To See Before You Die" list and make the trip to northern France.  I recommend staying overnight and really taking it in, but even if you just do the tourist day trip it's still a must see.