Michelle and I got back to Waukesha about 10pm or so from a very nice weekend in the Twin(ish) Cities…

We got to the theater for the Storyhill show after Aaron Espe had already started playing, but the people in charge over there were very nice to give us a couple extra folding chairs to park at the end of the 4th row, and we had a fine view of the stage.

Chris and John played almost all the songs off their new record, and a bunch of them we already knew, having been to Storyhill Fest on our summer vacation. I definitely like the new tracks. There were a lot of “repeats” or recycles on the ‘Dovetail’ that came out a couple years ago, but this one is all new (with the possible exception of “The Ballad of Joe Snowboard,” but I don’t recall that John ever formally released that one).

For an encore, they played “Boulder River” and then “Steady On.” We wouldn’t stop with the applause and managed to get them to come back again after the lights went up and maybe a quarter of the people left. Encore #2 was “Tremblin Tracks.”

Michelle picked herself up a pink Storyhill t-shirt and had Aaron Espe sign it (kinda funny). She wanted to wait around to see if the boys would come out, but I suggested that it didn’t seem likely, and we left the building about 10pm.

When we got outside, the car wasn’t there anymore. We walked over to where it used to be, and realized we had apparently parked in a taxi stand. I admit that I didn’t pay particular attention to the signs when we parked, but mostly because I expected them to say something similar to what the signs say in a normal town: “No Parking here from 5am to 9pm Monday thru Friday,” or the like. Not so in Saint Cloud, MN.

So have you had your car towed lately? I’d had mine towed never prior to Saturday, so I really didn’t have any idea where to begin finding the car again. Fortunately, there were a number of cabbies parked right there, so we asked one. He gave us a couple leads, and also offered the foreboding prediction that picking up the care that night would prove impossible. Just. What. I need.

We had a name of a likely towing company (“Andy’s”) courtesy the cabbie, but no other info. We next spoke with a couple mohawked bouncers at the nearest bar, who agreed on the Andy’s assessment, but also said that there was not a phone book in the bar. OK. They suggested we run across the street to the Radisson and find a phone book there.

I was fairly upset with myself at this point, but also trying to remain calm. We got the info we needed, made a call, and found out it would cost us 85 bucks to pick up the car, but we could do so right away.

So we did.

It was a little bit of an adventure, and I learned to do a better job reading the signs next time I park in a strange city. We got back to Dave & Dre’s apartment at about 11:30, watched the tail end of Saturday Night Live (didn’t we?) and then went to sleep.

On Sunday, everybody slept in, and a little later Andrea made breakfast. It was tasty. We took a ride downtown to the sculpture garden, which was pretty neat. I’d never been there before. I took some pictures, and they should probably be uploaded pretty soon.

We got back on the road kind of late, because I had to return a flash drive to Best Buy (man– I’ve gotta remember that: no matter how cheap it seems at Best Buy, it is ALWAYS cheaper somewhere else…), and then we did park in Tomah for a while because we needed the Internet. Michelle had to email some PDFs for work to Kinko’s in order to have them printed in time to be picked up in the morning… We both agreed we didn’t know why we didn’t think of it while we were still @ our friends’ apartment. But everything worked out.

Michelle got her new phone, so when you see it, make sure you tell her how cool it is. And if you’re Jen, try not to get so excited that you want one, too, because I am already TOTALLY planning to get the same phone in Dec…

Yeah.

I wonder if the Bears are winning…