The levels through the 50s flew past in a few hours and Leesah and Melof dinged level 58, immediately abandoned all existing quests, emptied our bags and headed for the Blasted Lands and the Dark Portal.
Going through the Dark Portal is always such an event for me - as a BC baby, the first time I took a character through there meant that I was really getting somewhere in the game, that I was playing with the big kids, and that we really needed to get a second computer so that we could both feed our addictions. I had no idea what I was doing, but by that stage I was in my first guild and had plenty of people around to help with tricky quests and a group of friends to instance with.
Nowadays, you blast through the Portal and head straight for the Great Outlands Gear Giveaway (GOGG), where all the gear you had previously looks like a pile of kodo droppings in comparison. You do all the group quests on your own and the levels up to 70 go by so fast people barely set foot in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley anymore. For me, the Outland zones will always be fondly remembered as places where I spent many an hour farming Primals for my Frozen Shadoweave set or heading out for another run through Botanica to try to get that staff for my druid friend...
This time will hold an interesting perspective change for me since I have never been to Outlands as a member of the Horde. Heading out of the portal, there was instant confusion as we couldn't take the quest from the flightpoint, before realising that was the Alliance one (/blush).
The first quest we did outside of Thrallmar resulted in this upgrade. This is a fair indication of the state of Leesah's gear before the GOGG. Yes, that says 'level 14' on it. The weapon damage enchant on it was part of my enchanting leveling, before anyone asks ;)
A few quests later and Leesah is already suffering from Outlands Clown Syndrome (insert homage to Ratshag here), but she is rocking an awesome hat!
As soon as we hit 60 and refer-a-friend bonuses end, I'll head back to Azeroth and try to get Leesah's herbalism and enchanting to some kind of respectable level before having a proper crack at Outlands.