I remember feeling The Call before the DRC went public nearly ten years ago but I wasn't able to actually come here until just a few years ago. I remember doing everything I could to keep up with the events in the cavern. When the DRC left it pained me, but I found hope as I learned of a whole tapestry that was being created by explorers who refused to leave. I followed various forums, read The Archiver, listened to The Cavern Today, and even watched the crappy little webcam the DRC hosted for a while. None of it was enough. I just wanted to take the journey myself.
Finally the DRC returned and still I waited and listened. A few of my friends took the journey and came back with stories that made my imagination run wild. I wanted to be an explorer. I wanted to travel to the ancient URU. Then the news came that the DRC had run out of funding and that the cavern would be closing again. I cried. I'm not ashamed of it. To me, D'ni represented a dream and a hope I had held out for for years. A place I felt called to. A place filled with people I had never met yet felt a deep kinship with. That feeling never leaves you.
I guess I was never able to reconcile that feeling. The Call. One day I took a train to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I stayed with a cousin of mine. I didn't have to tell him I was searching for something. I doubted he'd believe that I'd find anything in that desert.
The next day I took a series of buses from Albuquerque to Carlsbad. At a diner in Carlsbad I saw a photo that caught my eye and asked if someone could take me there. I hitched a ride out into the middle of the desert until the road vanished and the driver refused to go any further. I thanked him and set out towards the feature in the distance. And the rest? Well, the rest is history. I took Yeesha's journey. It stuck with me. I've been here ever since.
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