Zyx's Road Trip: Day Two

I woke up this morning to find a folder of pictures and some rough notes from Zyx Flux about Day Two of her Road Trip up Route 9 on the mainland. Hopefully I was able to make some sense of her scribblings.

Started in Chindo (SLurl) again and shortly thereafter found what has to be location #2349838 for Outy's Particle Paradise. Those shops are everywhere. Next door was a shop with textures and lots of vendors that refused to rez, so I moved on.

Mystery crystal.

Another purple crystal by Plexore Lumiere (SLurl). They seem to appear every few hundred meters now in every region I visit. Sometime I'm gonna have to send off a dragonfly messenger to the maker to find out the backstory. Are they to help wayward travelers? Are they roadside shrines? Are they part of a giant, grid-wide art installation? Are they supposed to make me write lots of interrogatives starting with 'Are they ...'? I don't know. They certainly are more regular than any other feature on this route and I don't remember seeing them on any other Linden roadway. Sometimes I see 64m² parcels for billboards from a particular company I won't name, but nothing is as regular as these crystals.

At Sammy-n-Jenna's.

Maybe I was bored on Day One because I tried to focus on what was immediately along the roadside. When I reached the Mumun region and another crystal I decided to check out interesting things farther from the road. That lasted about 15 seconds when I came across "Sammy-n-Jenna's Road-Side Lake" abutting the road. This is a cute little strip of land no deeper than about 15m but running quite a ways, featuring Asian-inspired structures and a pretty artificial lake (SLurl).  One of the joys of mainland is sharing your property with others and this is a perfect example. Sometimes I wonder why I have a home when I can just use "common" properties like this. Then there is the opposite — putting your land behind Ban Lines. Right behind Sammy-n-Jenna's is a nice, giant genie bottle, but I could only look at it behind the electronic barrier. Such a shame, but it was one of the few Ban Lined properties I've seen so far.

Just across the sim border in Yeodeol is a giant UFO-like structure with a pottery museum inside and a mini-railroad outside as part of "Prinsengracht, A real Dutch canal with 16th Century buildings." Sadly, I couldn't find a working train to ride despite flying over the tracks across several parcels with various bits of "junk" ranging from camels to broken helicopters. But I was pleased to find what might have beenThe Church of Ruth (SLurl). I'd heard of such places in Second Life, but had never seen one. I think was one. All the "stained glass" windows were pictures of a Ruth-like avatar, but not the infamous Ruth most Oldbies would remember. Search your Inventory for Ruth and you'll find that you have a copy of this nearly prehistoric avatar.

I might need blocks on the pedals.

Not far down the road, at the Yeodeol Apolon Shop (these folks seem to own everything in the sim; SLurl) you can test drive one of several different vehicles, including a Jeep Renegade, and drive them down Route 9! I tried the Jeep but eventually went back to get a motorized scooter for my travels when I found I couldn't quite reach the pedals and steer at the same time. Interesting to note, the road surface changed when entering Yeodeol and again further down in Hobak, where I lost control of my scooter near another Linden Roadside Rest (SLurl). So I waited for Shelly, my pack snail, to catch up with me in Hobak, let her graze and roll around in the moss for a bit, then continued my journey with reliable transportation.

Another crystal upon entering Bbang (SLurl) and then I stopped to explore Lilipily Spirit - Temple of the Goddess of Living Light (SLurl), an Indian meditative garden (according to the land description). The lush grounds only start in Bbang with most of the property covering a very large part of Omurice and called "Lotus of the Soul." Part of the property goes in Gimichi and includes some interesting shops in "Desire of the Hearts Gardens." At one point, after I passed a replica of the H.G. Wells Time Machine movie prop, an automated system offered me a HUD to help explore and I thought it best to just quickly fly about, take a few snaps, and be on my way.

Lots of alpha textures and structures that could be updated with sculpties or newer techniques to reduce prims and improve appearance, but there are still impressive sites everywhere.

The shops are very colorful while the shopping district commons are warm and inviting.

Traveling is hard on a pixy!