Having swam from Theramore Isle in Dustwallow Marsh to Tanaris to get to Gadgetzan, I’d never had the need to go through Thousand Needles. Therefore, while I was killing Rocs for Rhapsody Shindigger’s Kalimdor Kocktail and saw a path leading north out of Tanaris, I was intrigued. I followed it and came upon the Shimmering Flats. As someone who’s only been playing WoW for a handful of months, there are still places that are on my to-see list, and the Mirage Raceway was one of them (Booty Bay, Gadgetzan, and the Barrens are among those already scratched off of said list). Call me a tourist, but it’s something I enjoy doing. So when I came upon the Shimmering Flats, completely by happenstance, I was thrilled. Now, I’ve been places where you can easily see mirages before, Las Vegas among them, and this place definately fit the bill for a mirage (but I kept wondering where they were going to put the volcano/fountain). In any event, I hung around for a while, took in a race, and did some quick quests for the two racing teams before posing with my warhorse for a shot with the two racers. It didn’t net me much XP or anything worthwhile (other then more quests for racer sponserships), but it was perhaps the most fun half hour or so I’d had in WoW in quite some time. With all of the grinding and questing I’ve been doing in harder areas, this was a welcome break. That’s my advice for everyone; take a break every once in a while and do something simple that you can enjoy. Be it fishing, cooking, or – like me – sightseeing, partake in something relaxing and you’ll come back to your adventures refreshed.
