It was ten months from the time Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, became trapped in the ice before it finally sank. Fortunately the entire crew amazingly survived not only that, but also another nine months before their rescue. The last five of those months were spent on Elephant Island.

The weather forecast here this week is for temperatures and wind chills some 30 or more degrees lower than that of Elephant Island, but I don’t have to go outside if I don’t want to (and I won’t be eating any dogs).

Instead I have been inspired to start constructing a LEGO version of the Endurance that I’m taking my time with, as the groundhog said something about six more weeks (months?, years?) of winter, but hope will not take me more than ten months to complete (though I’ve already had to start over once, so who knows), will not sink (pretty good chance of that as it’s not near any water) and will not go unseen for over 100 years (some possibility of that as I don’t get a lot of company).

This project might be the first item in a new LEGO wing (complementing the spacecraft gallery) that would be a combination musical theater (Ernest Shackleton Loves Me) – sea (a groaner, not a typo) you later nook that could also include the Titanic, which took somewhere between 5 minutes and 2 hours 40 minutes to sink, depending on whom you believe (but in either case, would require me to work faster) and is featured in the upcoming Porchlight Music Theatre/Broadway in Chicago production of Titanique.