Hoover Dam

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

Hoover Dam

Nevada / Arizona

Going domestic this time. The Hoover Dam sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. It's a very popular tourist attraction - about one million people a year take "the dam tour" - and it's extremely important to the region as it controls flooding, provides irrigation water, and provides electricity to people in three states.

As always, I won't bog you down with facts and history lessons about the place that you can get online from smarter people than me. I'm just going to list some hopefully helpful observations from our trip here last fall. 

We had our daughter with us on this trip, and she really enjoyed the dam. We flew into Vegas but stayed in Boulder City the night before visiting. It's just minutes away from the dam and is a rather cute little town with plenty of local restaurants. I should point out that this was October, and we got to the dam early, right after they opened. We had no crowds at all. As with most tourist places, the game changes if you go when everyone else does. I'm guessing this place especially because they have limited space for ingress and egress. Parking was fairly easy. There's a garage right before you get to the dam. You can also drive across it to the Arizona side and park in a lot there. 

Speaking of driving - up until 2010 the dam served as the crossing for the Colorado River on US 93. It's only two lanes and I imagine it would have been a real traffic nightmare as busy as that highway is. In fact, after 9/11 they wouldn't allow semi's, buses, or box trucks to cross it at all. They've constructed the Hoover Dam Bypass now - the four lane bridge seen above. You can't see the Hoover Dam at all when driving across the bridge as they made the sides too high (good call), but you can park at the base and walk out over it on a special walkway and get great views of the dam. We didn't do that and I kind of regret it. The only cars driving across the dam now are heading to the parking lot on the AZ side.

We took the simple tour of the inside of the dam. We were there when they opened so we got right in line and I think we waited for the elevator for about 5 minutes, during which time a very knowledgeable and funny gentleman answered questions for us. There is a longer tour which goes deeper into the dam and takes about an hour I believe, but we weren't sure how Samantha would do so we went with the shorter one which takes you to one of the turbine rooms. The elevator was tight, but other than that there are no issues even if you're claustrophobic or have trouble getting around. Samantha loved it.

  
After the tour we hit the Visitor's Center and the Original Exhibit Building where they had a rather interesting topographical map presentation. It was included on our tour ticket which I believe was $15. None of the outside the dam stuff was all that spectacular but I did learn a lot. It's worth checking out.

Other than that you just kind of walk around and take in the views of the dam, Lake Mead, and the surrounding landscape. There are places to eat and souvenir shops but nothing spectacular. If you don't have to wait to take the tour, you could be in and out of here in a little over an hour. A couple hours is really all you need.

  
Is it worth it? Yes, I think so. It's easy and cheap and I found it to be rather interesting. We hit the Grand Canyon and Vegas on this trip as well, and it's between them so if you're doing that you should definitely stop. You don't need to plan a trip around it, but if you're in the area visit the Hoover Dam. 

2000 Ford Excursion Limited 4X4 V10 (#3)

2000 Ford Excursion Limited 4X4 V10 (#3)

I'm not going to keep writing about these things every time one of them comes up on my random generator. They're pretty much all the same. As I've mentioned, I've owned 10 Excursions and most of them were 2000 Limited 4X4s with the V10. This was the third one I purchased and I actually owned two others at one point while I had this one. I might have been the only person on the planet that owned three Excursions at the same time. How stupid was I? (rhetorical - no responses needed)

For what it's worth, this one had about 70K miles on it when I bought it and was quite nice and clean. I never had a single issue with it and I was even OK with the color. 

Another one down.

2004 Polaris Sportsman 700 EFI

2004 Polaris Sportsman 700 EFI

This was my first ATV. I never really had much interest in the things (always had fun riding them but it wasn't something I needed or wanted to own) but I started dating a girl who loved going four-wheeling so.....

Sheri had the little tan Honda in the middle (I bought the red and blue Polaris later for some reason). She took great pride in her rather diminutive Honda being able to go just about everywhere that the big boys could go. I decided to go a different direction.

I bought it new. I shopped all the largest and most powerful ATVs for sale at the time and decided on the Polaris because back then it was the only option with fuel injection (EFI). Everything is EFI today, so I think I was on the right track. I didn't stop there though. I tricked it out with just about everything you could do to a four-wheeler. I did the obvious stuff at Polaris before I even took delivery of it: Lifted - bigger wheels and tires - skid plates - a 2500 lb winch with a remote control - etc. Next, I added all the other things I had seen on other people's rigs that I liked such as a Kimpex box, the cooler rack in the back, etc.

Then I got creative.

I had a stereo shop build a marine system for it with a satellite head stereo and CD player. Stereo systems on ATVs are pretty common, but I had them custom fabricate a head unit for the controller and mount it under the gauge. It worked pretty good considering all the abuse and harsh conditions it faced.

The thing that I found most amusing was the spotlight I mounted on the front. A lot of four-wheeling is done at night (it's a heat thing in Texas - you kind of have to wear coveralls to protect yourself from things like snakes and God knows what else and they aren't that comfy in 95 degrees with 80% humidity). I decided to buy one of those remote controlled spotlights like you would find on a yacht and mount it on my ATV. It worked great! I could be standing 100 yards away from my ride and control my 225,000 candle power beams' complete motion. 

I also had red and blue flashers mounted in the headlights so I would look like a policeman when I turned them on. They didn't work as well though. 

I bought a trailer to haul everything (always had a truck or two around so that wasn't an issue) and answering the question "What are you doing this weekend?" with "Goin' mudding." became an actual thing in my life. 

They call it mudding for a reason! Best as I can tell, the fun is trying to see if you can get in and out of places that you probably shouldn't be able to without getting stuck. These things will go just about anywhere. Mine almost never got stuck but I used the winch to pull other people out quite often. 

There are lots of places you can four-wheel around Houston, but this picture was taken at a place called Mud Creek in east Texas. 

I don't do this sort of stuff anymore. The hobby (and the Polaris) left with the girlfriend. It was a lot of fun though. If you just talk it out it doesn't seem like it would be - go freeze or sweat while camping out in the middle of nowhere to ride around in the mud and dodge snakes and rocks and drunk people. It actually was a lot of fun though. You always think "there's no way I can drive over that log" and then the Polaris would just do it...like it was nothing. It's a lifestyle. I probably won't ever get back into it again, but I love riding four-wheelers and I loved my Sportsman 700 EFI.

Chartres Cathedral

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

Chartres Cathedral

Chartres, France

My wife says I don't do enough travel posts. The simple reason for that is I can do a car diary post in like five minutes, but these "100 Places" posts tend to take a little longer. Laziness! I decided to knock one out though and the Chartres Cathedral is the one I chose.

The cathedral is located in the town of Chartres about 50 miles southwest of Paris. There are nearly 40,000 people in Chartres, so it's not a tiny town, but the central area where the cathedral is has a loosely enforced pedestrian only zone that makes it a pleasure to visit. It feels like a much smaller town than it actually is. 

The structure itself is impressive, and the history is interesting:  The current building was completed in 1220. The impressive stained glass was all removed prior to the Germans invading in 1939. The entire place was saved by an American officer named Welborn Griffith during WW2 (look it up - fascinating). It's an annual pilgrimage site because it has housed the Sancta Camisia - a tunic believed worn by the Virgin Mary at the birth of Jesus - since 876. Etc....

The inside of the cathedral is really cool as well. There is a big stone labyrinth on the floor but we couldn't walk it because they had chairs set up. The stained glass is amazing! It really tells a story. The entire place inside and out feels "preserved". 

This place wasn't really on my radar, but it was in the book that my list started from and it was easy to visit so I left it in. I'm glad I did. Branelle and I spent a couple days in Chartres in 2016 and we feel like we lucked into a great experience. 

The night we got there they had just set up for a two-week laser light show all over the central part of town and they were testing it. Basically you could walk around the pedestrian area and watch these amazing shows projected on all of the old buildings, including the cathedral itself, with accompanying music. There was no one in town so it was like getting a private show.

We had dinner at a great little restaurant called Le Cafe Serpente directly next to the cathedral and then just walked around the old town watching all the lights. It was September - by design we try to travel when other people don't and the weather is decent. In Chartres it really paid off. We stayed at the Le Grand Monarque and it was fantastic! It's a very nice hotel right across the street from the pedestrian zone and about two minutes from the cathedral or anywhere else you want to go. 

The next morning we got up early, had breakfast, and then walked to the cathedral. We were there when they were scheduled to open at 9:00. In fact, we were the only people there. At exactly 9:01 a nun opened the door and let us in. She actually went outside to do a few things and for about 15-20 minutes we were the only living creatures (aside from mice) in the entire church.

These are the moments that I appreciate and find to be unforgettable. Some people like to 'share' experiences with thousands of other people - think like Times Square on New Year's Eve. That's actually my idea of Hell. Having this 800 year old church to ourselves on a September morning - that's special to me. I'll go to great lengths to get to do things like this, but we just lucked into this one. When the nun finally did come back in the door we chatted with her for a moment and then a few other people filed in and we left.

Some practical tips and thoughts:

• You could day trip Chartres out of Paris, but I'm not sure I would. The cathedral is spectacular, but not any more so than Notre Dame for example. France, and Europe for that matter, has no shortage of impressive churches. Chartres as part of a trip around Northern France though is a must. 
• Parking is available right around the pedestrian zone but it's underground. It's a little tricky to find, but when you do it's right there. Our hotel actually didn't have any parking so when we got to Chartres we just parked our car in the underground garage and never needed it again until we left. 
• They don't charge you to go into the church. They'll certainly take donations if you wish or if you'd like to light a candle. It's not very touristy. 
• We actually drove to Versailles on the way to Chartres. It's a perfect start for your out-of-Paris trip.

We had a great experience seeing the Chartres Cathedral. I'm not sure it would be easy to replicate the solitude and extras we had on our visit, but it still makes a nice entry on the 100 Places list. Chartres is a nice town and the cathedral is a very interesting and historic place. I wouldn't call it a can't miss destination, but I think you'll be glad you went if you check it off your list.