Sweet Surrender

While exploring, I came across Sweet Surrender, a sim dedicated to romance and love.  I'm going to quote their description because I personally think that they gave the best description for their own sim:

"Sweet Surrender is a dreamy, romantic haven where love fills the air. It’s a place designed for intimate moments and magical connections. Soft lanterns cast a warm glow over cozy nooks perfect for cuddling, while a charming dance floor invites couples to sway under a canopy of twinkling stars. The gentle melodies of live acoustic music float through the night, creating an enchanting atmosphere where every glance, touch, and step feels like poetry in motion. Sweet Surrender is where hearts meet, and memories linger forever."

As I toured around Sweet Surrender, I noticed that it does have a lovely atmosphere and feeling of romance through the different areas, but also a sense of dreamy nostalgia in some spots, and a distinct charm in the different designs, that have been set up throughout the region.  Time and effort is obvious, as you walk around, exploring the different scenery.  I do recommend exploring this beautiful sim for yourselves.

Navhud 2025 03 09

 Another weekend goes by and thanks to Drivers of SL, another drive was done.  This drive was 4 legs, which means it was not a large drive, but it was certainly a fun drive. This drive was sponsored by Alpha Omega design, which does give a wonderful gift at the end of the drive.

On this drive, you will need:

• a road vehicle
• plane or helicopter
• boat (preferably a speed boat)

You will start out in Bellisaria and end up in Jeogeot, with the mission of repossessing 2 cars, which will be provided.  When you are driving them, take care of how you drive because these cars will take on damage, which will cost you money from the "job".  *TIP* When you go to drive those vehicles, go slow around corners and curves.  They are sensitive and will register damage with any impact that they encounter.

The start of the drive at the Bellissaria Railroad Station



Driving along in my speedboat, enjoying the Bellissaria coastline. The drive was beautiful, enjoyable, and I always find it quite relaxing to do.



You end up driving to this airport, but before you do go flying over to Jeogeot, you go to the subway and you are transported over to an amusement part, for some fun and enjoyement. You will get the chance to enjoy a rollercoaster ride, a water rafting ride, a train tour and a mining cart ride.




One of the reasons I love about doing routes/drives with Drivers of SL, is that they find the most amazing and fun places that are on the grid. After doing a few rides at Panadamonium Amusement park, I enjoyed a show with dancing storm troopers, Darth Vader, and R2D2.

You will take your plane or helicopter and fly over to Jeogeot Airport.  It's a nice flight, not overly long and you get there before you know it.

After going over to Jeogeot, you repossess the last car and bring it to the store, where you will receive this uber cute little car for all of your hard work.

The vehicles used on this drive: 

C.H.C Bambino

S&W MD500 (free group gift)

Bandit Boss 225V

Nav Hud 20250301

The Drivers of SL grid drive came out yesterday, so it's time for another adventure in Second Life, driving along roads, flying, playing with a trolley and enjoying many wonderful views.  This weekends grid drive starts in the Nautilus continent and is sponsored by Olympus motors.  *All credit for the map goes to LorenFox. Her map package is free on the marketplace and has rezz zone nc's and a finderhud*

On this drive, you will be using, in this order, a road vehicle, a plane or helicopter, a train, and a road vehicle.  The drive is not too long, just 5 legs to go through, but you will have a nice, scenic trip for the majority of the drive.

For my first vehicle, I started with the Olympus motors Happy Family vehicle.  I did run into a couple of regions that were laggy, but if you keep your vehicle's speed on the lower end, gear 1 or gear 2, you can get through the worse of it with little issue.

For flying, I went with my trusty Spijkers & Wingtips MD 500 helicopter.  I did get this helicopter free from the group, along with the paint job you see here on it.  I'm not sure if it's still for free but it is a super easy helicopter to learn to fly and very user friendly.  *I popped over to the airfield and it is still there.  You just join the group, which is free to join*

You end up over in Second Norway, which is really an amazing continent to drive through, and you grab a train, or in my case, it was my trolley.  It was a fun drive, which was easy enough to drive and enjoy the scenery, which I did.

Trains are fantastic, especially if you are going through areas that are really wonderfully built.  You can enjoy the view and because trains are so easy to work, you can take a photo, if you feel like it.  The trolley I'm using is by Brit Balogh, called the San Francisco trolley.  

After my lovely trolley ride, there was a little visit to a local pub and after a brief rest, you will need your next road vehicle.  This portion of the drive is really great, with you driving along in Second Norway, which is an amazing area to drive along.  It's also bigger than I thought.  There are some stops along the way, and the roads twist and turn a bit, which I recommend keeping the speed down, so you are not driving off of the road constantly.  As for the last car I used, it was the C.H.C Bambino.  It's a small vehicle but it travelled well, along with being uber cute.

When you have gone through all 5 legs and reached the end of the drive, you will head over to the Olympus Motors store, where you will receive this beautifully built vehicle.  I did test drive it already and it handles wonderfully.  Thank you to Olympus Motors for the fantastic gift!

Last, but not least, a huge thank you to the Drivers of SL team who put together this grid drive, this weekend.  It was a great trip that I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

The Cloud Garden

While checking out one of my feeds, I noticed this beautiful spot someone had posted about.  I figured why not check it out, since looking at and posting about destinations is something I use to love to do.  I am really glad I did.  The Cloud Garden is set up with different spots, all with a dream-like quality to them, almost ethereal in the way it's been decorated.  It's a really beautiful sim that just begs to have photographers taking photos and appreciating the hard work that has been done there.  The following photos were taken at the sim, using mainly windlights to create the looks and atmosphere.  I do not do much in the way of editing, other than cropping to neaten the photo up and lightening or darkening, where is needed.  I would rather show what I have seen, without photoshopping things in or out of the photos, so that you get the truest impression that I can give, of what I have found.

Nav Hud drive 20250222

Weekly drives are created and hosted by the amazing group, Drivers of SL.  It is through their hard work and dedication that these weekly drives are possible, so all the praise and thanks goes to them.

This weekends drive was sponsored by Capital Motors and at the end of the drive, a really generous gift is given out.  

This weeks drive was actually a shorter one and I have to be honest, the grid was not playing well with the drivers, at times.  There was crashing that occurred, which had me flipping around with different vehicles, to see if I could find one that the grid would not argue too heavily with.

I found that the Surplus Motors Insetto worked the best for me.  It's a smaller electric car, which I have found seems to thrive on lag.  Whenever I find the going is rough, this little sweetie gets me through it.  However, it hates badly made roads.  It will get stuck in certain areas of Bellissaria, where the roads are not quite as cleanly built. (It's the original Bellissaria area, when the moles first made the roads).  Put the car in edit, slide it over the rough patch and you are good to go.

This drive called for a road vehicle (any road vehicle) and a small or medium boat.  For this drive, I was in a more relaxed mood, so I pulled out my Bandit Bambino, which is created by Analyse Dean.  

The Bambino is slower moving, since it is a small Dutch tug.  Though it's not a speed boat, it is incredibly easy to use and fantastic for someone who just wants to putz slowly down the waterways, enjoying the view, while driving on the water.  Because the hud was having issues on this drive, I was glad I went with a more slower vehicle, since the hud direction finder had several drivers going back and forth.  

NOTE: I did go back, before posting this entry, and it was much better compared to Saturday, when I originally did the drive.  There are some regions that are still laggy but it's better than before.

I don't know how the amazing team from Drivers of SL do it, but they do find some of the most amazing places to see and visit on their drives.  A wonderful example is one of the spots that we saw along with the way, which I did take a photo of.

The photo is not edited, it's simple windlights and click, but as you can see, it's beautifully built.

During the last leg of the drive, there is a third vehicle, which is provided for you, which is a plane.  

You grab the blue one, you take it for a flight and you are suppose to fly under some cranes.  I will admit, I utterly fail with planes.  I have one speed with them, when I finally get them out of the water, which is Crash.  I can fly a helicopter, I'm great with my air balloon, and for some bizarre reason, I have a plane called a Goose that I can fly, but anything else is ending in hilarity and wild antics from me.  In this case, the plane was treated like a sub, for a brief moment, until I dragged it out of the water and then I bounced off of a few building before clearing that area.  When I got to the cranes, there was more bouncing, more water and eventually utter failure as it drowned.  I do wish everyone luck though and I'm sure you will do much better than I did.

If you haven't grabbed the Nav Hud yet, pop on over to the Drivers of SL Headquarters, grab it and have fun.