Heather spent her 18th birthday at Comic Con. What better place for this fan girl? We arrived at our Air B&B house and headed out to Corvette Diner, a neon-themed hamburger and shake place. They sang Happy Birthday to her which was awesome. We got up early on JULY 20th after studying the bus and trolley lines and headed for the con. The girls looked amazing, albeit a little odd on the bus. It was obvious where we were headed. Our first point of business was the BBC America store where we shopped our Sherlock/Doctor Who fandom. We walked the exhibit floor and took pictures of the girls and other cool cosplayers we saw (Moana and Up). We went to see the Legion panel since there weren't a lot of panels we wanted to see (It was a Walking Dead year). Day Two was Harry Potter Quidditch day for the girls. We walked the floor for a bit, stopped into the iZombe panel, and then I took off to go stake a spot in line for Hall H the next day. I did see Lt. Ohura on the way out. Do young people even know who she is? It's nice the older actors still attend the cons. Anyway, Heather wanted to wait in the Hall H line for the Stranger Things and Marvel panels that would be held the next day. We heard if you get in line by 1:00 p.m. the day before and are willing to sleep on the sidewalk, you are guaranteed a wristband to get in. It took me a while to find the line, but when I did, we had a nice grassy spot in the shade, and met some great people. They said they'd done this before and we were in a great spot for the wristbands. The girls met me later, and we waited. It was hard to sleep, but we tried to rest. At about midnight, the wristband distribution started. Unfortunately, some dishonest turds duplicated wrist bands and snuck into the line through a restaurant up ahead of us. They ran out of wristbands before they got anywhere near us. People tried to tell security, but they didn't really care or I guess think anyone could do that. We stayed the night and walked forward when the line moved to settle for the evening. There was a chance we'd be in the 200 people they save extra seats for once the wristband folks get in. Our nice friends held our space while we Uber'd back to the house to shower and pack up. On Day 3 we drove our car to the trolley station and caught a trolley at 4:30 a.m. to go get back in line. As the line moved that morning, and we got into the "chutes," there was still a small chance. By the time the panels started, they didn't even have room for the wristband folks which was a sure sign something had gone very wrong. We spent the rest of the day hoping that enough people would leave to fit us in. It was unlikely, but we had waited that long and decided to tough it out. By 5:00 p.m. after 28 hours in line, we didn't get in. We tried. At that point we were so tired that we decided to leave the con (it was our last day). It was still a memorable con. While we were in line, two of the Stranger Things cast members had passed us. I told Heather that she had a closer celebrity sighting than we would have inside. It still counts, right? Hopefully ComicCon can get their security set so this doesn't happen to others.
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