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Wrote this Saturday morning, but neglected to post it.

Stayed up too late Thursday night doing various pre-packing things (like folding all the clean laundry that's been sitting in a stack in my laundry basket). Didn't get enough sleep that night.

Friday morning, Kam and I drove to SFO, then flew to Minneapolis. I didn't manage to sleep on the plane (which I usually have no trouble doing). My state of awakeness by the time we arrived at MSP can be summarized by my reaction to a sign saying something like "Ten thousand lakes; a million memories": I thought, "Wait, ten thousand lakes, isn't that Minnesota? We're not in Minnesota, we're in Minneap— Oh. Never mind."

At MSP, we walked halfway across the (fairly big) airport to get to our gate, then found that our flight had been moved to a gate that was most of the way back to where we'd started. Got to the new gate, found they'd overbooked the flight by 20 seats. The next flight was in a couple hours, so we volunteered to be bumped in order to get the $300 travel vouchers.

The next flight was supposed to get us to Chicago by 10:15 p.m., which I thought would probably leave us just barely enough time to pick up our rental car and make it to Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Note to anyone who doesn't know this yet: I'm really bad at estimating how much time things will take. I'm consistently much too optimistic.

(Aside: the new flight was back at the gate that we'd originally been told the previous flight was at. In total, we probably walked about one and a half times around the entire ring of concourses at MSP.)

The flight arrived in Chicago on time, or close to on time. We spent a while figuring out how to get to the rental car places. Got the car, got only slightly lost on the way to the hotel. We almost skipped the hotel in favor of trying to get to Too Much Light on time, but figured (a) the hotel was almost on the way, and (b) the directions I had gotten to the show (via Google Maps) started from the hotel, and (c) we didn't want to leave two expensive laptops in a car in an unknown neighborhood of Chicago in the middle of the night.

Arrived at the hotel, parked, went in. Didn't have to wait too long at the front desk. Got room key from very distracted desk clerk. Rushed upstairs. Entered room—and found there was only one bed. (We'd reserved a room with two beds; I don't sleep so well in a bed with someone else.)

Rushed back downstairs. Cut in line in front of the people waiting to check in, with their very grudging permission. Told other desk clerk we were supposed to have a room with two beds. She said she was all out of those but could give us a bed with a fold-out couch. At which point other clerk said "That's what I gave them!" Turned out that was indeed what he'd given us; he just hadn't bothered to mention it to us.

So we checked our bags at the front desk (to avoid having to go back up to the 10th floor again) and ran out the door. At this point it was 11:00 pm; Too Much Light was starting at 11:30.

The desk clerk had given us directions to the freeway we needed ("just follow the signs!"), but it turned out there was a lack of useful signage. Some backtracking ensued, trying to follow the low-level-of-detail AAA map. Eventually we got on the right freeway—and discovered that it was stop-and-go traffic as far as the eye could see.

So after maybe ten minutes of not going very far, we cut over to surface streets; the directions had us taking surface streets for most of the trip anyway.

We arrived at the theatre at 11:45 pm. We hadn't been sure whether it was possible to get in after the show started, but figured it was possible. Or that it was conceivable that they'd have started late, or something. Worth a try.

But alas, it was not to be. The front door to the theatre was open, but the doors into the performance space were locked. We sat and listened to the uproarious laughter from inside for a bit, then left.

Took only half an hour to get back, despite a little further uncertainty about directions, 'cause of lack of traffic.

So it wasn't so much any one particular thing that made us miss the show (unless you count the decision to get bumped from the flight); just a bunch of little delays all stacked up. Ah, well.

On the minus side, Kam had to spend an hour and a quarter driving, after a long day of travel. (I wasn't really safe to drive, due to lack of sleep.) On the plus side, I suppose it could be argued that we got paid $600 (the two ticket vouchers) to miss the show.