The Forest of Rodeo Is No More.

When my family and I returned here earlier this year, courtesy of the Lindens' Second Life technology, I made it my mission to restore the great forest that used to stretch from Abbotts to Bolinas and south to Mavericks. I started replanting trees in Rodeo close to my great grandpa's lookout that I rebuilt on land Shantilly Lily sold me. Phyneas Jack's Lookout

The Lindens had named that section "Rodeo" when they extended The Grid to include it. It made sense for me at the time to name the forest the same. Since then, a lot has happened. The forest has grown much larger and now extends deep into parts of Stinson and Cowell. The combined forested area now measures over 75,000 sq. m.

Phyneas' notebooks have been very helpful in shedding light on the history of that place before The Great Erase. One of the maps I found in his research materials seems to document his early exploration of the area below present day Immaculate.



Part of his writing had faded quite a bit over the years and I couldn't read the smaller text. Marcos Fonzarelli offered to analyze the map with some special equipment he set up at his lab. Feel free to swing by his ARMORD Labs in Miramare and operate his spectroanalyzer for yourself. It's located in his lab on the third floor in the north part of the complex. He was able to make the faint text readable!

That text, written so long ago, has inspired me to change the name of the forest to "The Forest of Kahruvel." Please check the map results at Marcos' lab in person as there is more mentioned on it that I could use assistance figuring out.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Salazar Jack

(Attached are some new photos of the renamed Forest of Kahruvel. The upper photo shows a view toward Immaculate in the northwest. The lower photo shows a view to the southeast with Noyo and The Ivory Tower Library of Primitives in the background.)

very good job sal. well done.

Just re-inforces my belief in your utter coolness.

Whoa! That title nearly floored me. I am glad that the forest region has just been renamed, I thought some natural disaster or something had taken place in the region to cause its demise. Dont scare me like that!

I have seen the maps at ARMORD Labs and it is very impressive work going on there. It is definately worth a look if your interested in history and scientific discovery. The name change makes a lot of sense after viewing those old restored maps. Best of luck with the continued grounds keeping and research your doing in that region.

The Forest of Kahruvel is truely a gem and would be sorely missed by many if it were not there. Unfortunately, its one of those places that you dont appreciate until its gone. Get down there and see it, vast forests are a true rarity these days. It is a great place for a hike and to escape for awhile.

I am with Loki here - when i read the title i said to myself "NOOOO!!!" .... thank goodness the forest itself is still there! Kudos to the background and the new name.

Wonderful wonderful work, Salazar. Thank you for giving us the forest.

Nice to see a forest in SL

I have about 2000 unused prims on my land right now - maybe one night when I'm feeling too stressed to sleep, I'll use them all up with snowy pines

It sounds like it's more than just a forest. Long lost answers await yet unasked questions about our Second Life History...intriguing.


Nice work Salazar.


Champie

Thanks for your kind words. My apologies for the scare, Loki and Changeling. Rest assured that the forest is here to stay. I also hope no disaster touches the area. That would suck if Mt. Pomponio erupted and turned it all into matchsticks.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Uri Pasteur for setting her land in Stinson to the Phyneas Jack Memorial Trust and preparing for trees to be planted on her property. The result of which will allow the Forest of Kahruvel to stretch from the east shore of Rodeo to the west coast of Stinson. Two sections of The Grid with uninterupted forest from one end to the other.

There is definately more to this place than just trees. I have found ruins here and there that defy explanation. What is the purpose of the circle of pillars that overlook the sea? What was the small rectangular dias with stone steps used for that faces the small cove below Remi Marten's land? Nothing I have read so far has shed any light on them.

Except this... the map at Marcos' lab seems to indicate their location along with some other spots that my great grandpa marked. So far, I have found no other ruins at those locations, save the obelisk he noted on the small island in the NE corner of Rodeo. I was able to uncover part of it. The symbols on the exposed side make no sense to me. I would sure appreciate someone else taking a look at it and giving me their two cents.

Which reminds me... a big thank you to Marcos Fonzarelli! His spectroanalyzer works great. It's pretty amazing what it has been able to reveal from that old parchment. The obelisk's location is pretty well marked. To see it and the text that had faded, just play with the green buttons until you get the correct scan setting.

This intreuges me, I'll check it out.

This is a great place, I love your lookout and forest and pretty much everything you do in SL.

I couldn't agree ith Ingrid any more.

Thanks Sal for the fascinating History you are discovering. I recently bought some land in Myrtle that allows me to sail my small expedition boat along the coasts of Bodega, Davenport, Stinson, and Rodeo. This method offers me an insight into the majestic beauty of the forest as well as the island off the Bodega mainland where the obelisk lay fallen. There is an aura of history there.

There are many other great things to see all along the coast line including Abbots Aerodrome. Wow! jou have to boat along the southern and western waterways of Abbots to really appreciate the Aerodrome.

Champie

Yeah the title scared me too. That's been one of my profile picks for a while. I love that place.

Actually Champie, the obelisk I found is on a tiny island off the coast in Rodeo to the NE. I was only able to uncover one side of it. The rest seems to be buried in some sort of lava-type rock which is more difficult to dig through than the sandy topsoil was. I happened by there a few days ago and found Loki Pico and Lilith Satyr examining it. Neither of them recognized the writing, but were working with others to help identify the symbols. Maybe others would like to take a crack at it?

The writing on it is still a mystery to me. My great grandpa seemed to find it familiar, as far as the notes on his map are concerned, but I have found no further reference to that peculiar writing in his notes yet.

His map does indicate that there was something of interest on the larger island you mentioned off the coast of the Bodega area. So far I have not found anything there except a barren landscape.

I agree, that whole area beneath Immaculate is a great place to explore by boat. The addition of the inland sea makes it even more so.

Gorgeous (as always) forest, Salazar. I'm glad my tower is gone, the cliffs look so much more beautiful without it

Orlando! Good to hear from you. I have been meaning to send you some updated photos of my progress with the forest. I'll send those over to you later this evening.

I would like to take a moment to thank Loki Pico and Lumiere Noir for their generous gifts to the Phyneas Jack Memorial Trust and the Forest of Kahruvel. Their combined contributions, to date, have added over 10,000 sq. meters to the forest in Noyo and Palomarian. My great grandpa, Phyneas, would have been very proud of your kind hearts and care for the natural wonders that exist here.


Loko's gift of the cove in Palomarian is pictured on the left. Lumi's gift of land adjacent to Rodeo, just north of the Noyo Telehub, is pictured on the right.

Thank you both!

Salazar

Phew! I thought this was another thread about deforestation to build a mall

Over the past few months, a few residents have been working on deciphering the strange symbols on the obelisk located on the small island in the NE part of Rodeo. The results have been astonishing. Chromal Broadsky sent me a very thorough translation of the obelisk’s exposed markings, complete with speculation as to some of the more obscure passages. I was able to check Chromal’s findings against similar work from Alexander Dague and Champie Jack. After comparing efforts from these three sources I feel confident that the translation we have ended up with is as accurate as possible.

Chromal was able to make a translation with the help of some old stones that he found on his property in Lusk. One stone in particular has the same strange symbols on one side that the obelisk has. The other side of that stone has a message written in the English alphabet. Chromal speculated that the two sides contained the same message and used the corresponding letters to decipher the obelisk’s text. Meanwhile, Alexander discovered that the symbols on the obelisk unexplainably corresponded to a modern day computer typeface called Wingdings and provided me with a translation that was almost an exact match to Chromal’s. Champie also used Chromal’s stone to translate the obelisk. With his help we corrected a minor error and arrived at, what I think is, a very good translation.



The markings on the exposed face of the obelisk seem to commemorate an agreement of some sort between different groups of people that lived in the area long ago. I’m going to have to get the obelisk carbon dated to get an idea of it’s age, so I won’t speculate as to it’s origin just yet. The discovery has only led to more questions and provided very few answers.

Here is the complete text of the translation:

here in this place
three races begin
a quest for peace
to seek understanding
to quiet the war cry

we shall live together
we shall teach each other
we shall till urtahra
with ox and horse
as brothers and sisters

three joined as one
adze pick and oar
one stronger than three
islefen stonahra
and di ingue baughts

Two of the more obscure words jumped out at me right away. The word urtahra is a term that I grew up with and can refer to the ground at one’s feet or the whole world in general. Islefen is a pre-Erase name for the area around and below Seacliff and can mean the place or the people that lived there. My grandparents’ family, on my mom’s side, were originally from the Islefen region. I don’t recognize the word adze and the other strange terms in the last two lines of the text are a mystery as well.

If anyone else has an insight please post your thoughts here or IM me.

Thanks!

Salazar

Darn, I was hoping to astound everyone with my translation skills - once I discovered a place where a group of woodcutters, miners, and fishermen were likely to have set up camp (and leave behind nifty relics).

Don't fret Fairge, I'm sure there are many long lost secrets yet to uncover in The Forest of Kahruvel -- and the rest of the world for that matter. As a matter of fact, Kim Anubis and I had a conversation a fews days ago regarding the translation of the Rodeo obelisk. She pointed me to a web site that had documented Magellan Linden's discovery of a map left behind by the Di-ingue Baught tribe. There's a handy translation matrix provided by Surina Skallagrimson there as well. Fascinating stuff! I'm guessing the Di-ingue Baughts were originally from the chain of volcanic islands represented in that map -- the areas the Lindens have given Micronesian, Japanese, and Hawaiian names to.

So there seems to be some information on the Di-ingue and the Islefen from before The Erase. I haven't found any info on the Stonahra yet. Kim pointed out that an adze is a woodworking tool and speculated that the three tools mentioned just before the tribe names might represent each in some way. I thinks she's on to something there.

p.s. Fairge, your conclusion that they might have been woodcutters, miners and fishermen may prove to be true. It certainly makes sense to me after learning what an adze is. - S.J.

Salazar,

I know we've talked about this before. I think the significance of the word "Kahruvel" is worth mentioning to others. The map you found with Phyneas' notebooks contained some information that I had never seen before, including his curious spelling of that name.

Before The Erase, my parents and I had always referred to the long skinny island, just south of Immaculate, as "Caravel." Everyone did. Father says it was called that for as long as he can remember. Even Phyneas and his family referred to it that way. I don't know why he included that particular spelling in his map notes -- my parents had never seen it written in that form before. But then he wasn't always forthcoming when it came to new discoveries he'd made.

Perhaps he stumbled onto something and never told anyone about it.

-- Mom

You gotta love a mystery! Jack, I'll bet the forest would look super with some of Bedazzled's "Field Of Dreams" groundcover.

That's what was so intriguing to me. I had to name the new forest after that. It seemed right.

Indeed. I never thought that I would be smack dab in the middle of this when I first came here in February of this year.

I don't think I know about this groundcover you mention. Is it the same type of vegetation that was on the south side of Neverland Island? I remember that was pretty cool looking. There used to be a lot of Linden grass in the forest, okay weeds really, but I think that made it difficult for some folks to make thier way around. It took a lot of time to have to wade through those weeds. So I got rid of them. It's a lot easier to move through the forest now. My only concern would be that adding additional groundcover might make that difficult again.

Maybe one day, when the Lindens can increase the power to my section of The Grid, I can let it go a bit more wild again.

Salazar,

I don't mean to be a worrywart. Your father and I have been stuck in Grignano for the past six hours and have not been able to get to any other part of the city. Are you all right? We haven't been able to raise anyone on the radio. Fortunately the Internet is working. Please respond if you get this.

-- Mom