Before we begin, I should not have to mention that a person wishing to look at fall foliage should get off the computer and drive out into the country. Fall foliage is a once-a-year event, and there isn't a lot of colorful time between green summer leaves on a tree and brown dead leaves on the forest floor. The time between those is where the true Leaf Peepers work, and most of them don't have time for the okie-doke.
I live in New England, so naturally I am an utmost authority on fall foliage. Most New Englanders I know are aware that other regions of the country have the same stuff happen in October, but enough of them aren't aware of this so that we have an enjoyable snobbery which I indulge heartily in. I do so even though I am in enough fall foliage Facebook groups to know that states like Tennessee, North Carolina and Colorado all represent hard.
New Englanders, especially the Massachusetts ones, are odd ducks anyhow. We feel that Massachusetts is where the Revolution started, and that therefore July 4th is sort of our holiday. As the home of both Stephen King and the Salem Witch Trials, we feel that we deserve a disproportionate say on Halloween. As the region with Plymouth in it, we own Thanksgiving ouright and only share it with the other 49 states. We claim Labor Day, as the labor movement in America began in Massachusetts mills. We even think Martin Luther King Day is ours, because he went to BU. You can guess how we feel about Fall Foliage.
The Enquirer has paid me to write this stuff before, so they are aware of this parochial mental defect which their Plymouth-based writer suffers from. Naturally, that made me their go-to girl for a Fall Foliage article. As guitarist Albert King once told Stevie Ray Vaughn, "I'm qualified."
When Lanai was looking for seasonally appropriate Fall Foliage articles, I answered the call, put on something orange and headed out to the woods.
In the real world, you wear orange when hunting so that hunters won't mistake you for a deer and shoot you. I make a great effort to do nothing which could be viewed by a hunter as deer-like when I am strolling through the woods in October. I also wear orange when leaf-peeping on SL out of force of habit. I even have orange Air Jordans.
In spite of my exhortation earlier about getting off the computer and out into the country to see the real thing, I happily freed some time from my usual BDSM activities to sim-hop into a few virtual regions that were going all in on Autumn. Virtual leaves are enjoyable, and they usually co-exist with other fall activities if the sim owners are putting forth the seasonal effort. It is a worthy expenditure of your time.
Fall Foliage sims aren't something that you are going to plan on visiting with a half-dozen friends. There's nothing wrong with rolling deep, but the "Hey, come here, look at this" stuff that comes with sightseeing in a crowd will throw a true Peep off her game. The author of this article, who works along a certain MO, does her dirt by her lonesome.
About a zillion sims have some sort of Autumn theme or undercurrent happening, but I found just a few who really devoted themselves to Fall Foliage. One of them was the Fall Autumn Fest at Evolving Images (http://maps.secondlife.com/
They have a seasonal thing going there year-round, as they had some sort of teleport system based on SPRING, SUMMER and WINTER and all that. I would have explored that and may some day return there to do so, but I was hyperfocused on the Leaf Peeping for this trip.
They had a central area, with a couple of walking paths into the woods for fall foliage viewing. They even had a section of the trail that is haunted. I got my prowl on, took out the camera, put in work... it was an enjoyable visit. I like when sim creators get an idea that they pursue into a whole sim, and this was the work of a fellow fall foliage fan.
I should add that the pictures here also include some from French Farm, where I was for my last article. Pictures I took at French Farm get jumbled in with pictures from Evolving Images in my Pictures folder. I lose... you win!
Here's the French Farm addy (http://maps.secondlife.com/
Leaf Peeping leans heavily into the ROY part of the ROY G BIV color spectrum. There is plenty of green as well, and the sky seems to always be blue, but ROY is driving the car in October.
I can't design sims, I can barely dress myself... but if I can make one recommendation to sim creators who venture into fall foliage, I would say to include a mountain. Mountains aren't foliage, but if you get a higher vantage point, you get more sweeping views of the forest as a whole. I live in the flatlander coastal part of Massachusetts, we have no mountains, and this is part of why a Massachusetts girl has to tap out to a New Hampshire girl when Peeping is discussed in depth. You can get good views from the ground, but Height is Might.
Sometimes, you get stuck inside at an office or babysitting or whatever, and you can't roll out to the Berkshires to see Mother Nature break out the crayons. Fall Foliage sims on SL help ease that pain, and I strongly recommend that you check out and support these places.
An avatar isn't fully self-actualized in Autumn until they go Leaf Peeping, no matter how many pumpkin spice lattes they drink. That, and money/fame, is why I go hunting for cool sims for you to visit. I love my readers, and I want you to be the best you.
Since I was wearing orange, I did try to hide in the trees for a few shots. I was sort of planning a Where's Stacey? theme to the article, at least with the pictures. I thought about lying and saying that I was somewhere in every picture in this article, so that my readers would waste time and effort looking for me in every picture... but I won't do that to you. I was also bare-legged, and not a good enough photographer to shoot compelling pictures which also hid me effectively.
If some of my sports betting loses me money, I may return to these sims and try to make a quick buck hiding the reporter in the foliage for your viewing and gaming pleasure.
Until then, fear not. I have a bunch of pumpkin patch, apple picking and Halloween stuff in my Pictures folder, and I will produce articles on those themes soon enough. Sometimes I don't write anything for fiv months, sometimes I write four articles in two weeks. That's how Stacey rolls, kids.
Ready for Winter?
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