Worth The Wait

Winner, Winner! Rita's Water Ice Before Dinner!

Before breakfast even.

I've never been a fan of the camp out line. Not for concert tickets, not for game tickets, movie premiers at midnight. Nope, not even for the the $10 toaster oven on sale at WalMart on Black Friday. Sure, I'll get up early to get in line but camp out for days? Not me.

East Coast fave, Rita's Water Ice has finally made its way west. They have been slowly opening in my area of SD. One is one the way for Mira Mesa, right in my triangle! But when I woke up to a text from my friend, Jasmine to try to be the first 100 in line for FREE Rita's for a whole year at the Grand Opening of the Rancho Penasquitos location, I had to check it out. 

The store opens at 10. Its now 6:30am. The kids leave for school about 7am so I thought I would take a little drive up Black Mountain Road after they left to assess the situation. 

I packed up my beach chair, the newspaper and a few magazines. My kindle is fully charged. I think I was being overly ambitious in the reading department.  Coffee and bagels are just a few yards away and there is a bathroom in the nearby Von's. One can never be too prepared.

As I drive up I look at the line. It goes around they building. It looks close to 100 but it was worth parking and getting out to take a closer look. The first thing I notice are the campers. Tents and sleeping bags take up a lot of space. At the back of the line there are just standers and some beach chairs. 

I'm not going to try to count every single person. Here's where all that estimating the Common Core is always teaching comes in handy. I count out 10 people to see how much space they take up. While walking from the back to the front, I mentally measure out sections of about 10 people. I estimate there are about 80 people. Its all good! They did not hand out any type of wristbands yet so I'm hoping people are following good line etiquette and not saving space for non waiting friends. On the odd chance that 10 people are getting coffee or using the rest room, my hopes are high for that FREE water ice.  I am confident I will get in!

I text Jasmine, who is a school bus driver, that I'm here. I can't save a space because I don't want to face the wrath of the line. If she gets here shortly she will be good too. She tells me she is about 5 minutes away. "Get here quickly and you will be good", I say. People are slowly trickling in but not many are staying. 

About 8:45, they start handing out lanyards with numbers. Whose great at estimating????

Jasmine gets 89. We can leave after that until 9:45 when we all line up again to get our FREE ice coupons. We got 52 coupons. It's supposed to be 1 free ice for a year but they are not dated so you can use them anytime. You can even share with a friend of you are so inclined. 

Mango Gelati for breakfast!

(that's me in the beach chair and pink hat)

We didn't have to show any ID except an email address so I'm going to do the same thing when the Mira Mesa store opens in the next few weeks! 

And that, my friends, was a line worth waiting in!

It is what it is...

Namaste