Traveling to Chicago was indeed an adventure worth posting here - and the two hours I spent chasing you all around Chicago were, without contest, the highlight of the weekend, though actually one of the less adventurous parts.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, my voyage begins and ends on the road. JJason, Shea Wolfe, and I piled into my car for the six-plus hours it takes to drive to Chicago. Along the way, we encountered a great deal of Wisconsin's scenery (much of it flat, repetitive, and smelling of cattle) before finally entering Illinois and then making our approach to Chicago.

We reached Chicago around eight, found parking (not easy!) and made our way to Yas' place, where JJason and I were staying. Then we went and met Iaman. Iaman, JJason, Shea, and I went to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind - which was incredible. And I learned quite a few interesting things about Chicago and its people that evening:

First, that you get more funny looks in a black fedora when you're alone than when you're with someone else in one.
Second, that the pair can top that if they start skipping.
Third, that Iaman removes his hat to eat - revealing the familiar cat-ears underneath.
Fourth, that you should never date your mechanic.
Fifth, that if you leave after the parking lot has closed they don't charge you for having parked there.

The next morning JJason and I went to the brunch at Dax's place, and he is even cooler in person than online. I then spent the afternoon at a gathering of people from a different website (two Chicagoans were expected) which was not attended by anyone other than me and JJason. Apparently the other folks had a medical emergency. However, we did learn that Giordano's pizza is one of the greatest things known to man, so the afternoon wasn't a total loss.

That evening I was a chaser in Journey to the End of the Night.

And after that is where things start to get hairy. I should mention that my mother is now in town, for business. I had agreed to pick her up at the airport on Sunday... and her flight got in at 2:30. So when JJason, Shea, and I decided to go to the Journey after-party, we did so knowing it meant a very short night, as we'd have to be on the road at about eight.

Which we weren't.

I got back to Yas' apartment just after 4:30 in the morning. I slept for three hours, and then went to go get the car and pull it up to her place to load our stuff into. Unfortunately, Chicago is not a city I'm even a little bit familiar with - this was my first time there - and I have a crummy sense of direction. I took a wrong turn.

I figured this part out quickly enough, and flagged down a taxi and had the driver take me to my car. Then I drove back to Yas' house. I had to ring the doorbell to let JJason know I was there, because he had loaned his cell phone to Shea. Shea had been afraid his cell phone would die on him, and he wanted us to be able to call him.

One small problem: I had mistakenly left my phone in the taxi.

By nine, JJason and I were driving around Chicago in the vague vicinity of Shea's brother's house (where Shea was known to be staying). I was looking for establishments liable to have telephones we could use, while JJason was looking for unsecured WiFi networks. Eventually (by which I mean at about quarter of ten) we found our way to the University of Illinois at Chicago student center, where we were able to use a payphone to call JJason's number. Shea answered, and the day was saved.

Well, mostly. Shea had tried to reach me on my cell, and the cabbie had answered. So we knew he had it. Then Shea's brother called it from his house and arranged for us to meet the cabbie at noon to reclaim the phone. And the four of us then went out to lunch.

Noon came. Shea's brother and I hung out at the designated intersection with JJason's phone, whose number we had given the cab driver. Then at about 12:15 Shea's brother's roommate called him to say the cabdriver had called to say he was on his way.

At 1:00, we called Shea's brother's roommate back. It turns out the cabdriver had gone to his house and dropped the phone off there.

So then we finally departed. After quite a while navigating Chicago traffic from there, we were finally free! And I would only be five hours late to meet my mother, and we would be back in St. Paul in time for dinner.

Yeah. Back for dinner. With a stop for coffee in Huesca. Right.

We hit the road, and everything went smoothly until we reached Milwaukee, where traffic on I-94 rerouted us through downtown. That added a little time. More problematic was the construction encountered after dinner - which didn't seem that bad at the time but miraculously added more delays than we could possibly have anticipated.

At about 10:15 we were finally home, fourteen hours after setting out from Chicago and making a journey all the way to the end of the day.

By the way, I apologize for the photos being kinda boring - there's not much to document about how flat Wisconsin is, JJason borrowed my camera for the game, and after the game things were hectic enough not to get documented.