Jojo at the Cove

 Jojo Apple, also known to many as Harmony Beningborough, has a cute new grid called Harmony's Haven and this week the Safari crew came for a visit. She has been a resident of various grids across Opensim. Recently, she decided to pick up sticks from OSgrid and move into a grid of her own, bringing with her Mermaid's Cove, a region with a waterside theme. The new grid opened at the end of September, so it's a fresh new place for the group to visit, and no doubt we will be back to see even more of Jojo's sims.

Lavia LLavine: Excited much Jojo?

Jojo Apple: um. No. TERRIFIED! giggles

Lavia LLavine: I dunno why you know most of the folks. Just relax and be you

Jojo Apple: There is a LOT here :) Color, movement...I hope everything looks great to everyone!

Thirza Ember: ok here comes the group

Lavia LLavine: Incoming!!

The Tree of Forest

Our first stop this week was on Neverworld, at the Forest of Azure the home of singer, storyteller, builder, erotic photographer, and Safari regular Forest Azure. Forest was the principal guest in a really interesting episode of Inworld Review back in 2024 too, and hopefully she will soon be a guest again. As you know, each Safari is made up of two destinations, often with very different themes, and this week our second destination was in a mermaid's lagoon, that's why some of us look a little ...fishy. 

The landing point of the region is on a sky platform, where you can find both the Maze build - it looks like a one story stone castle, and also the Azure Gallery where you can see some of Forest's photos.

We quickly teleported down to ground level to meet up with Forest, under the branches of a gigantic tree growing directly out of the Opensim Ocean.

Forest Azure: Welcome safaristas!  Today we will visit this tree and the maze gallery that you saw before, but with a different content. We will start our safari with this tree: Lothlorien. There are several spots in this tree-world to explore. While you are exploring, I will tp groups of 3 to the maze. I will start teleporting for the maze in about 15 minutes. The maze is now about a story you all know: Cinderella. But mind you: this is Cinderella Azu style!

OSGrid Goes On

 SO after all that drama, OSGrid is not completely closing and disappearing at all.  Having worked everyone up into a froth with the announcement that Sunday 18 October was going to be "the Last Community Meeting",  they walked that back to simply the "Last Community Meeting of 2026". 

Big difference.

The cupboard under the podium has whiskey and vodka.
Both much needed during this meeting.

As of today (and I guess things could easily change again) the idea seems to be this:

On Hurliman

 This Sunday at 11am is the big meet up for OSgrid residents to have their say and learn more about the decision to close the grid on the last day of December 2026. Come to Hurliman Plaza with a local avie, as simply dressed as possible, and add your voice.

Event Plaza

Hurliman Plaza.... as most people know, there are a core set of OSGrid regions, they have 'Plaza' in their names. Let's take a quick tour of a few. For example, the most visited of all has to be Event Plaza where grid admin Aussie oversees the music on Wednesdays and at the weekend.

LBSA

Then there is of course LBSA Plaza, the Welcome sim for OSGrid, seen here in all its Halloween glory. You may be able to spot grid president Dan Banner center left. This sim dubs itself the social lounge of OSGrid, someone said years and years ago that LBSA stands for "Linden Bay Shipping Association", I wonder if that's true. It might be too late to find out. Despite having a web page dedicated to it, the history of OSGrid is very poorly preserved, which is a huge shame. 

However, there's more plazas out there to discover ...

Into the Vortex

 Our second destination this week was the Electric Vortex region of Tenth Dimension grid, home to newlyweds Star Ravenhurst and Drew Blood. 

Star's been a regular Safari tourist for the past few years. However some months ago, her gaming laptop died and she found it impossible to do a lot of group grid-jumping with the 'potato' computer she had to resort to. This was sad for us, but it led to a big increase in her creativity in other ways. Always a fan of AI, Star began to explore ways of using it to make music, and has created a whole lot of tracks. New husband Drew Blood is a DJ so it's a match made in heaven as he curates song lists that often feature Star's work. This week in combination with the ongoing OSFest, Star and Drew invited us to an entertainment region, and like Drew's playlists it's an eclectic as well as electric place to visit. 

Drew Blood: Greetings. Welcome to the Electric Vortex

Aphra Hendrix: hey Drew, nice to meet you in person

Petlove Petshop: Sorry Angelica!

Angelic Kisses: no prob...didn't hurt at all :)

Lavia Lavine: My cloak vanished.  The parachute from our first destination did it.

Shelenn Ayres: Greetings carbon units!

Spax Orion: This unit is mads of plasma not carbon

Thirza Ember: some missing textures but on the whole, pretty darn impressive for the Safari

Spax Orion: I see everything just fine

Lavia Lavine: Same here I see it all beautifully

Koshari Mahana: I hope I am wearing clothes lol

Cherry Manga: candiiiies for the eyes!

Star Ravenhurst: Welcome everyone. This is a club region and we will be having an event with music this Sunday, Oct 18th and Drew will be spinning the music and I will do my best to host you all.

Drew Blood: I kinda made the track go into the next, like the album

Chute Case

 Pack your bags it's time for another Safari trip this time a sort of return journey to the big Airport build by Jason Flux and master scripter Karsten Runningbear. Jason's beautiful and meticulous mesh sets off a series of industrial landscapes with trains, planes, and commercial vehicles. This is a man's world, the ultimate train set with all the advantages of automation and no bits left lying on the floor to step on in the night. I love it.

Karsten Runningbear and Jason Flux

Jason and his wife Finja Flux are of course famous for their sci-fi build Fluxantis, a jewel of original hand-blendered meshwork. Karsten - well, for my money he's king of the transport scripts. The whole sim zings with life, movement, industry, and the charm of interlocking movement.

There were loads of us this week, but arriving on Pangea the lag was minimal. 

We have visited the Air Race before, but on a different region, with much less infrastructure. This time we were on a region called Pangea A023, so if you go exploring or following in our footsteps, make sure you're in the right place! The HG Address is of course at the end of the post.

Cherry (in the white shirt) asks for scripting tips

Jason Flux -> en: Hello everyone

Karsten Runningbear -> en: Welcome to our Sim! Jason and I are building it and we have some news for you. Some of you may already be familiar with The Sim; we've added a few new things.  First we'll take a look at the railway. Then we'll go skydiving. Please click on the "Viewing Platform" sign.

Dings Digital: I like the busy port and industrial area

See You on OSGrid

 Most of you will have heard that the Administrators of OSGrid have announced that the grid will close on December 31 of this year. The official news was published here on the OSGrid website .

Before saying anything else, a shout out to the Admins of OSGrid. Even if you don't agree with the decisions they have made, we all have to recognize the sheer effort they have put in, in terms of hours of work, thought, knowhow, passion, and kindnesses big and small. They have been doing their best in a thankless situation that must have been immensely stressful.

This Sunday, 18 October at 11am Grid time there will be another community meeting on Hurliman Plaza - hopefully this time there will be an overflow region connected to the Chat, and the speakers will use a Translator throughout so that the non English speakers can follow what's going on. Last time the region topped out at an eye-watering 100 within moments of the meeting beginning, so if you're coming, make your avie as low complexity as you can, and be ready to sit on a few laps before you find a seat!