Traveling & A Lesson In Gauge

Jenny had a workshop in Columbus (Upper Arlington) today, so we drove down last night, spent the night at Nicole's, then Jenny had this workshop from 9:30-3:30 today. So,I had all that time to do whatever. This is how my day went...
-Took Jenny's directions to find Grandview and, instead, saw the OSU campus. And lots and lots of students.
-Went to Caribou for coffee.
-Drove through Grandview to see what that was all about.
-Drove back to Upper Arlington and went to Half Price Books. Bought some books and $1 calendars after browsing for an hour.
-Drove back to Grandview. Had lunch at Aladdin's. Yum.
-Went to Jeni's Ice Cream down the street. Had the Honey Pistachio which was heavenly.
-Drove back to Upper Arlington. Went back to the same Caribou for more coffee and internet usage.
-Waited in the parking lot for Jenny to finish for 1 1/2 hours. Nearly froze to death. (We had not confirmed when the workshop was supposed to end, but I thought I remember 2:30. It was, in fact, 3:30 and she got out 15 minutes later than that.)

We then drove home, which took 4 hours due to snow and taking a weird route to avoid highways and secluded country roads that wouldn't be plowed or salted.

On this trip, I brought several things to amuse myself, including my knitting. I brought two projects: My second Monkey sock and a green alpaca hat. The story of the green alpaca hat is this...
I bought two skeins of Alpaca about two years ago, when I first showed a real interest in knitting. One in a lighter green, one in a darker green. I also bought an Addi circular needle for this hat. I got about halfway done with the hat when it disappeared. Two years later, I assumed it was gone forever when it popped up while I was cleaning out a closet. So, I started knitting the hat again today. After a few rows, I looked down and realized that the recent knitting was much tighter, making a sort of scrunched band.
Lesson learned: Your gauge may change after a couple of years. Either rip back and reknit more loosely or hope the blocking goes well.

Then I whipped out me Monkey. I was knitting along when I thought I should check how many repeats I had to go before starting the toe. I knew it wasn't close because it was much shorter than the finished sock, but it's good to know ahead of time. So, I counted the repeats on the finished sock and then on the in-progress sock. According to my counting, I was ready to started the toe. I recounted for the hell of it, just in case I had forgotten how to count to 10. I hadn't. I swear to you, this sock (without the toe) is 4 or 5 inches shorter than the finished one... Subtract 2 inches for the toe and I've got a sock that's 2 or 3 inches shorter. And much narrower. It looks nicer than the first, but it will be far too short. I think I'll try it on, see how bad it is, then decide what to do from there. I will be so sad if I have to frog it/them.
Lesson learned: Cast on the second sock immediately! Your gauge doesn't always take 2 years to change... it can change within 2 months.

Ali