I’m aware of the horse sprint. It still doesn’t seem to be that fast.
In Red Dead Redemption you could skip the animal skinning animation and pick flowers by standing over the animal or plant on horseback and hitting the skin/pick button. I wonder if that’s propertiery and the reason it didn’t show up in this game. Oh well.
It’s easier to climb mountains on horseback. Handy for exploring. Most of the time I follow the switchback trails when my objective is at high elevation, but sometimes it’s easier to just ride straight to the top.
I think that’s what he’s saying - a 15 second strength potion will “last” long enough to let you fast travel to your location, even if the location would take more than 15 seconds to travel to normally.
I finally completed the long and treacherous road from Whiterun to Riften. Along the way I stumbled into a cave with two trolls. I used my sneak skills to silently back out of that one. Unfortunately, Faendal’s three hitmen were waiting outside. It’s cool though, we’re friends again. I have since bought a few things from him and he never mentioned the incident.
I tried taking a shortcut but ran into a big bear. My daggers were no match for it so I had him chase me towards two hunters. The bear killed the hunters but was weakened enough for me to finish him off. Not only did I get some nice leather from the bear, I got some stuff from the two hunters’ corpses as well.
After that ordeal, I was nearing Riften but I ran into a sabercat, three wolves and a bear. All at the same time. With some clever use of the terrain and my amateurish bow skills, I managed to slowly pick away at them.
I’m finally in with the thieves guild!
You know there’s a cart out front of Whiterun that will take you directly to any of the major cities, even if you’ve never been there before, right?
sigh I know… I wish I could be like other alchemists in the world and get some clueless berk to bring me 20 Lunar Moth wings and 20 vamp dusts for 50 gold.
So after much debate (and time on this message board) I’ve decided to go with the Stormcloaks.
Reasons?
Well I started my Skyrim adventure with the Imperials trying to behead me. Then they shot a lowly thief in the back as he tried to run away. Takes a bit to forget that.
Really though it’s the Thalmor. What pushed me over the edge was while I was romping around in Markath I came across their religious police. And that’s all they are, religious police. They heard about some Talos worship and sent in the jack booted thugs.
So I say, as bad as the Stormcloaks may be, there much better than a weak, crumbling empire controlled by the bigoted Thalmor.
That’s no fun.
Yeah, I’ve never used that service; happening across random encounters & wandering down side roads is too interesting.
Welcome, Brother!
I came across a book in the game that described the Stormcloaks’ position in terms that made me respect them. They have no particular deep-rooted philosophical problem with the Empire. They don’t necessarily consider the Empire to be their enemies, but they know that in order to resist and openly defy the Thalmore, the Empire had to go. They hate the Thalmore, and they’ll push anyone standing between them and the Thalmore out of the way.
I can respect that.
Yes, that 
I live in the house in Whiterun so I am plopped right outside my door basically.
I did the walk from Whiterun to Winterhold. At night. I was a pure mage around level 8 or 9. I literally sighed with relief when I saw my first Winterhold guard and knew I was near the city limits.
The “fast travel doesn’t count towards duration” quirk also allows a less practical but more amusing method of carting along a bunch of extra stuff. First, you load up a corpse with what you want to take. Then you animate the body and fast travel; when you arrive there’s an “Arrgh!” and there will be a little pile of ash with your stuff in it next to you.
I burning my horse.
Save up and get a new horse. They’re quite strong so load up flames in one hand and healing hands in the other and go to town on your horse. He won’t run away and you get to level up destruction really quickly. 
What are the mods you are using, if any?
Currently, I am using
- SkyUI (better sorting and selection of items)
- Map with Roads
- Enhanced Skyrim Shaders
- Val’s Crafting Meltdown (break items into their core components)
Is it my imagination, or did they incorporate some elements of popular Oblivion mods in vanilla Skyrim? I don’t recall Oblivion having the reanimate corpse spell, but I know it was in Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul. Also, the fact that when you pick a plant it changes in appearance was an Oblivion mod, IIRC.
I commented somewhere way upthread on the same thing. And you are right about the plants.
I noticed that windows are illuminated at night in vanilla Skyrim. Saw that in a Oblivion mod and liked it.
I am really enjoying this game, more than I enjoyed Oblivion, but I hope that their next location is a little more unique. In Morrowind, you could live in a giant crab shell and public transportation was riding a giant walking insect. In one of the books about Blackmarsh they describe moving around the country by allowing yourself to be digested by giant worms and then cutting yourself out when you get to your stop. Skyrim and Oblivion are a little too generic Tolkienesque fantasy world for my tastes (Oblivion moreso than Skyrim).
I’d recommend Categorized Favorites Menu to complement the SkyUI mod. It really makes the favourites menu a lot more useful.
I also recommend the TESV Acceleration Layermod for a noticeable performance boost. The game is a lot smoother on my PC now.
Is anyone using the Thu’uMic voice recognition mod? It lets you use shouts by speaking the name of the shout. I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems reasonable.