(Historical Notes: You know, as I sit here and think about it now, I’m not sure why I only really remember this happening with Anime USA.  The whole “sitting in the lobby while somebody else brings the van” thing.  Obviously, a lot of cons have closer, cheaper parking so that leaving the vehicle somewhere else isn’t necessary, but I don’t just mean that.  Even with Otakon, which also tended to have this whole parking issue, it was a rare thing for me to end up sitting around with luggage for very long.  Normally I just got up earlier than everybody else and dragged my stuff out to the van myself.  Even if it meant riding the Metro out to the parking lot just to come right back, I tended to prefer that to leaving things in baggage check.  And yet, here’s AUSA.  Maybe it’s because I wound up doing Artist Alley more often here, so I had to go down and set up the table when I otherwise would have been stowing all my luggage?  I dunno.  It’s kind of a moot point now, but it still seems odd to Present Me as I struggle to remember what was going on way back when.)