Entry 17 - Anchorage at Last
13 Nov 2022miamijuggler
Well... I made it to Explorer's Anchorage. ![](https://inara.cz/data/gallery/218/218780x1011.jpg)
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I'll admit I felt a little shaky trying to slip through the mail slot manually after so many months of not practicing it. And indeed, I had to keep my hands from trembling on the stick as I finally set the Galaxy Song down.
I'm trying to gather my thoughts as I write this log, docked at a an actual station for the first time since leaving Colonia almost 15 weeks ago. As I write, Universal Cartographics is processing my data logs, and gradually remitting payment in batches of about 50 systems, so it will take a while. While this particular moment is filled with emotion and weariness, I also want to try and record my experiences the last few weeks as I made my way towards the galactic center.
The thing I keep coming back to is the gradual yet inescapable filling of the sky with stars. From the deep black emptiness of the edge of the galaxy, the star density has kept climbing and climbing, far beyond what I was prepared for. To the point now, where here at the center of the galaxy, no black remains in the sky. Even the darkest parts of the sky here are smeared with a soft warm light, and am humbled to realize that the light consists of hundreds of thousands of distant stars packed into a small, dense packet of sky.
Many people are stunned by the void, the emptiness out in the black. I am also stunned by how dense, and how vibrant, and bright our galaxy can be. I'll leave a few other photos here as mementos of my travels.
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With all that said, I'm pleased to have turned in my data and returned to inhabited space. I'll probably nose around for a bit, check out Sagittarius A* and a local stellar phenomenon, and then hop on the neutron highway back to the bubble.
I feel I've had enough exploration for the time being. I'm looking forward to doing some mining, perhaps some bounty hunting, and even some simple transport runs.