Expedition #8 began at the southwestern corner of the Gray sim. I made my way up the sea cliffs and mountains and came upon some type of aircraft base with a “Leviathan” Moon Rocket, fighter planes, runways and all kinds of airfield cubbyholes. The place was called “Home of the Kazenojin”, whatever?

I was captivated by all the jets and discovered a cool Soviet Mig fighter. Once again, I contimplated the notion of being an SL fighter pilot and recalled that one of my favorite computer games used to be F-15 Strike Eagle. It was acutally Igor’s game but I loved the feeling of freedom you get from flying. I could even land that F-15 on the deck of an aircraft carrier and Igor couldn’t. Hehe. Maybe, if I am re-incarnated I can become a female jet fighter pilot if there are such things in the future.

After marvelling at for an extended period of time, I made my way east into the Plum sim which was a giant sandbox area with a small Welcome Area and not much more. So, I continued on easterly into the Sage sim which was more interesting and included some land for sale. It was billed as “Very rare, full 40/40 terraform in the heart of old SL” but I don’t know why that is anything special or why they thought the 3084sqm lot with 1,916 prims was worth L$168,000.

I headed north into Rose and was pleasantly surprised to find the Zen Center. The center had a familiar feel to it and after a bit of exploration I realized I had been here before when I was a newbie exploring Zen and Japanese style. It is a beautiful piece of work but the rooms were basically just crammed full of mediation cushions, and moving was very difficult through cramped halls. I snapped a photo that I believe gives a sense of how esthetically pleasing the area is.

One last thing about the Zen Center. When I arrived I was given a notecard with a fragment of a poem attributed to T.S. Eliot:

we shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time

I like this little poem and until I discover a more appropriate poem, this will be the “official poem” of the Yordie Sands Adventurers. I move westward from the Center and found a typical out of theme lot then a couple of large well built homes. Overall, the Rose sim is a nice sim but it was time to move on.

The Olive sim is the home of McCleans Horse Farm. Unfortunately, McCleans is one of those owners has one of those overhead signs – “HORSES” – that screw-up the map. If the Lindens had any balls (pardon my language) they would ban this type blatant advertising. Nonetheless, McCleans is a beautifully developed sim with one of the loveliest pastures I’ve seen in SL.

I spent an hour or so at McCleans. The demo horses are really great and I tried out several of them. I have been wanting to find a proper steed for my adventuring, a horse with a ride as easy as poor old “Arrow”. I was especially interested in how the horse would do while flying and hovering, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the McClean horses have different running speeds. I spent most of my time on a gray stallion but had my eye on a beautiful buckskin and finally bought her and after visiting with Aynnie and Hart, I named her “Vixen”.