Given the big emotional and literary run-up I’ve given to previous deployments, it’s kind of embarrassing to pop up here and say, “Oh, uh – I forgot to mention that I’m headed back to Antarctica in a couple of days.” Wait – what?!? I mean, it’s been on the calendar since way back when, but what with the writing and travel and farm and Port Townsend, it kind of slipped off the stack until I got back into town Monday night.

“Letsee, what do I have planned for the rest of the week? Eye doctor, pick up pants from the dry cleaner, post a story to Medium.com and… head south for another month on the icebreaker. Right. Right, yeah, I knew about that.”

Fortunately, thanks to Google Docs, I’ve still got my checklist from the last two deployments and honestly, with 48 hours to go, other than picking up some chocolate with which to bribe the crew, I’m all packed.

I even had time to post a new story to Medium.com (warning, it’s a disturbing, depressing little tale).

But Antarctica. Yeah. The ship again, a reprise of the 2014 AMLR Cruise that was my intro to the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Same mission, same people, mostly. I’ll post more once I’m really truly southbound.