Popular Gilroy Garlic Festival hoping you won't notice lack of garlic

[Alex]

We've done the Garlic Festival twice in the eight years we've lived here. The first time we were warned of the traffic and in an abundance of caution we were there by opening.

It wasn't hot yet, it wasn't too crowded and we really had a nice time of it and were on our way by early afternoon (with enough time for a really nice backroads drive, getting from Gilroy to Oakland without ever using a freeway).

This time it was a spur of the moment decision when we couldn't think of anything to do with our Saturday, we didn't leave until 10:30 and it took 90 minutes from the time we left the freeway in Gilroy to get into the parking lot. It was blazing hot and the mood just wasn't there to have a great time, though in the end it was pleasant enough. But we were only there for about 3 hours.

Frequently Lani and I just use these produce festivals as an excuse to go somewhere we might not otherwise go or get there by a route that we've not been on. Probably the biggest one in the area we haven't yet made it to is the Almond Festival up NW of Sacramento (can't remember the name of the towns involved, but on the way to Cache Creek Casino).