Dahlia & Yordie Ballooning Across New England

Yesterday was an amazing day for me on many levels, but the most unique part of the day was when expert balloonist Dahlia “Sweet” Jayaram dropped by my new house for a look-see. Dahlia is very familiar with the entire New England region including the period when Nantucket sank into oblivion (check her comments in earlier blog post).

Anyway, after showing her the house and dock and such, she asked if I’d seen Sudane Erato’s sim. Sudane is the owner of this entire sim group, and although I’d had a couple IM exchanges with her, I hadn’t met her or seen her sim. It turns out though, Dahlia is a good friend of Sudane and suggested we go take a look at her sim. I assumed she meant teleport but in a matter of seconds she had rezzed her famous balloon and said, “Hop in.”

We slowly rose over my plot and before I could get my camera focused we were on our way. First stop was to be the town at Marblehead.

I had immediately lost all sense of direction, but I think we were headed northerly. That’s Dahlia (I think Dahlia lives in Costa Rica… I’ll have to ask) in her tropical attire and me shivering in my sweater. hehe.

Is that not a spectacular view or what? For those who don’t already know, Dahlia has flown her balloon across all of the Second Life continents on the grid. She has also written ebooks about each continent and has like an encyclopedic knowledge of the Grid.

Our first stop on the journey was at the port at Marblehead.

With the same precision she showed the day she landed in my Zen garden, she effortlessly landed in the shopping center.

We travelled across many lovely islands and then approached our destination, Sudane’s sim. We actually approached from the other side where I shot some pics of Sudane’s estuary (I’ll include in next Flickr upload). The thing that I loved most as we approached is the long sand bar extending off Sudane’s home.

Here’s where we landed, right out on the tip of the sandbar at Land’s End. We sat here soaking up the beauty for I don’t know how long. This wasn’t the end of our adventure, Dahlia took me home across one more amazing sky passageway, but this place truly immersed me in the special feel of this region.

I don’t think you have to be a gung ho explorer to appreciate a large sim group like New England. And I’ve been thinking a lot about large sim groups lately; I mean, knowing that there’s more just over the next sim is a wonderful feeling. And here there is a network of sims beautifully terraformed and landscaped, and there is that southerly passage all the way to the heart of the Blake Sea. This is what it takes to truly be a Wonder of Second Life.

Thank you Dahlia for a wonderful adventure.

About Yordie

I'm an avatar from Second Life, a gamer on Xbox, and the author of The Temporal Expeditions sci-fi novel series.

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4 Responses to Dahlia & Yordie Ballooning Across New England

Dahlia Sweet says:

January 31, 2012 at 8:34 pm

Hi Yordie,Sorry for my delay to comment on this entry of your blog. Thank you so much for all the kind words! I just want you to know that I enjoyed our time flying through SL New England as much as you did. I would love to come by again for another visit someday–for another balloon flight, a sail, or even a swim. The great thing about SL New England is that you have such great choices on how you can get around (I used to LOVE to take the Nantucket Village pedal boat around as far as eight sims away! Flying with someone who appreciates such beauty and is as enthusiastic about travel in Second Life really heightened the experience for me, so thank you again for allowing me the pleasure and the honour to be your flying partner on that day! Take the best of care, Love Dahlia

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Dahlia Sweet says:

January 31, 2012 at 8:34 pm

Hi Yordie,Sorry for my delay to comment on this entry of your blog. Thank you so much for all the kind words! I just want you to know that I enjoyed our time flying through SL New England as much as you did. I would love to come by again for another visit someday–for another balloon flight, a sail, or even a swim. The great thing about SL New England is that you have such great choices on how you can get around (I used to LOVE to take the Nantucket Village pedal boat around as far as eight sims away! Flying with someone who appreciates such beauty and is as enthusiastic about travel in Second Life really heightened the experience for me, so thank you again for allowing me the pleasure and the honour to be your flying partner on that day! Take the best of care, Love Dahlia

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Yordie Sands says:

November 30, 2011 at 8:30 pm

yeah, i was really honored that Dahlia was willing to show me around. She's an amazing lady and really knows her way around.

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Anonymous says:

November 29, 2011 at 2:38 pm

wow what a hreat day.

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