Slip Sliding Away: Sledding At Merry Lane! - Stacey Cardalines Reporting

 

There exists a chess/checkers relationship between skiing and sledding. 

I prefer sledding to skiing, which is odd because I grew up in a wealthy Massachusetts suburb and really should be on the skiing side of the question. You only have to drive to a local hill for sledding, as opposed to driving through half of New Hampshire and spending $1000 for the family to go skiing. Skiing is a very skill-driven sport, and you will hit a tree if you don't know what you're doing. You can hit a tree while sledding, too... but you don't have to waste all that time with Skill Acquisition. You'll be as skilled as you're going to get at sledding after your first ride.

Skiing is the more sophisticated sport, and a good skier is viewed as a superhero in some Alpine countries. Skiing is a snobby way to spend a day. Price some skis/boots/resort vacations and tell me that it isn't a rich man's sport. That's not a problem with sledding. You can spend $10 at Target and be all good and ready to go get Sleddy. 

I'd like to see NASCAR guys race with sleds on a really steep and long hill. They'd be a bit disadvantaged as Southerners who aren't used to snow, but their racing skill would be a fun thing to see flexed on Mount Washington in a blizzard. I bet that Dale Earnhardt Sr. would have been a good sledder if he applied himself to it.

The people who run Merry Lane: A Winter Wonderland understand the appeal of sledding. I know this because I was at their sim and they have sledding. Lanai lets me write about whatever I want, but I am a Sportswriter at heart and I walked by numerous interesting things as I bee-lined to the Sledding hill. Did you really have any doubt?

It's very easy to go Sledding at Merry Lane. You hoof it up to the top of the hill (I saved you that walk by landmarking the sim at the top of the Sledding hill), where you will find a sled. Click on it, and a second sled appears. The sled is bigger than every bed I had before I was married. Hop on that second sled, and off you go. 

The hill is admittedly short, and it would disappoint even a scared 4 year old in real life. However, a clever sledder can use the Arrows keys to keep the sled going forward. You can even go into reverse, an option not available to RL sledders. I made a few runs and was able to tour much of the sim by just powering forward until I hit a hill that my sled momentum couldn't surmount.

Don't go sledding in a dress, like I did. There is no modest way for a girl in a dress to sit on a sled without giving anyone nearby a the view that a girl should only share with her husband and her gynecologist. I was able to work around it because I had the sim to myself when I went, and because I was the one aiming the camera.

The sim is also fun for a walk. Most of it is set up for this purpose and this article is focused on sledding because the reporter who visited the sim is really a very curvy 9-year-old, at least mentally. 

They have a hot cocoa stand, a carousel with reindeer and polar bears, a sort of Christmas village with various trees and toys, a snow globe that you can hop inside of, and a bunch of other seasonal stuff. If you enjoy strolling through a winter landscape, this is the place for you. It's very large, and you can kill a lot of time strolling the acreage.

Like many winter sims, they are only open seasonally. This one closes in early February. By February, most people are sick of Winter and are looking forward to Spring. It just doesn't pay to keep winter sims open too late into winter. So hurry :)

Merry Lane: A Winter Wonderland = http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Breton%20Cove/64/156/2014