As mentioned last time, I believe I was dropped somewhere on the eastern side of the continent so I did the only thing I could do and start following the road away from the sea.
One thing that this walk convinced me of, which I suggested during my last one, was that, what it comes to roadside attractions, at least on the main roads, Zindra really does have more to look at. I can't and won't comment on the quality (when banished like this I tend not to blindly wander in and out of builds unless they're very obviously open to the public) but the quantity does seem fairly high.
Shops are, of course, very common, even shops that I know. I stumbled on one that I've shopped at before in the dim and distant past (at another location), although I wasn't so much in the market for more latex right at that moment. ;)
Animals also seem to be fairly common along the roadside.
I also stumbled on an interesting-looking building that I'll have to look at again when I'm in a position to actually read any notecards and the like. Obviously my name can't be in this database given that I couldn't read up on it.
Another thing I ran into a couple of times was missing sections of road. I wonder if there's some place you can report this to?
Roadside drunks also seemed to be a fairly common theme. I ran into this lady a few times:
And then there was the inevitable mash-up of animals and drinking:
The following location fascinated me, and made me feel a little sad too. A small shop by the side of the road with a "Grand Opening, Coming Soon" sign out front:
Inside was one free gift and one single vendor board with a t-shirt for sale. I inspected the "Coming Soon" sign and the prims appeared to date from 2010. Being denied names by the helmet I couldn't see who the owner was so couldn't be sure what the actual state of the shop was, but everything about it suggested it was someone's exciting pet project back in 2010 and.... it never went any further. I could be completely wrong, of course -- I hope I am -- but it made me think of all those failed projects, and made me happy that Z&A has actually lasted as long as it has.
Finally after a rather long walk, the road began to change. Lights and traffic control appeared. It looked like I might have made it to the edge of Kama City:
It became obvious that this was the case when I found the monorail and also found myself looking down onto the plain that the city is built on:
Pretty soon every bit of roadside land was built on.
Eventually I hit the sea again. I'd been following the same road all along, trying as best as possible to keep going in the same direction, so this appeared to be the western edge of the mainland of Zindra.
Having hit that point I decided to start randomly taking turnings and, pretty soon, I was back to a spot that I knew from my last visit to Kama City, the maps at the north west corner of the city:
From here on I had a good idea where I was and where I wanted to go. There's an island off the west coast of the mainland and I wanted to go and explore that.
Along the way I stumbled on what appeared to be an "outpost" of the Femdom Community in SL, an organisation that Z&A have been involved in a couple of times (being a sponsor of their events).
Eventually, on my route to the island, the road changed. It stopped being tarmac and turned into wood. This looked promising. I appeared to be on the right track.
Finally, I made it to the bridge over to the island, and what a cool bridge too! It's a swing bridge that you can control:
Eventually I stopped playing with the bridge and wandered over onto the island. One of the first things I saw was a very familiar form of transport, something that Mistress has owned since early 2010:
Without knowing that was where I was heading I'd stumbled on BWP:
Their shop and beach are really cool builds and, if you've never been there, you really should visit.
Walking a bit more I stumbled on a shop that obviously had fantastic taste in affiliate boards:
Eventually I made it was far west on the island as I could. From where I was stood it was nothing but a huge ocean of water between me and the next estate or mainland on the grid. This was also almost as far west as you can get on Zindra (I think you can get a little further west on the mianland itself if you go further south).
While wandering I stumbled on another "Grand Opening" sign. This time it wasn't quite so clear how old or recent it was. Another one for me to go back and have a look at I think.
Finally, as I was getting very close to the end of my 5 hours, I found something that was very new to me, and kind of odd. Not odd in a bad way, just.... odd. Here's the sign for the place:
And here's a poster explaining it:
An in-world memorial for someone who has passed in RL isn't that uncommon -- for a while I used to own some land just over the water from the grid's own memorial parks. The part that was unexpected, different and I found odd was this:
That, as far as I could tell, was the actual avatar of the person who had passed on. I had really mixed emotions about this. Again, I'll stress that it wasn't mixed emotions in any judgemental sense, it was more in a sense where I was taken aback by it. I've never seen something like this in-world before and the very idea of it had never even occurred to me before. I'd love to know more of the story behind it, how it came to be.
But that's for another day.
A few minutes later, as I wandered on, my helmet unlocked and it was time to head home again, my second period of banishment complete. It was, again, a fascinating experience. A longish period of forced separation from my shop, my workshop, my home and region is strangely liberating. As had as it is knowing I can't talk to anyone, can't take part in group chats, can't work on builds or anything like that, it's also almost reinvigorating to be forced to simply walk, reflect and observe.
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