So my wife and I are driving down US 101 in sunny California in the middle of last week. We had just come down from Calistoga at the top of Napa Valley, where we had been enjoying wine, mud baths, wine, mineral springs, wine, some great restaurants, and more wine - despite the 110+ degree temps. In fact, when we drove up from Oakland airport, I thought that there must be something wrong with the car's thermometer because it passed 100 and kept climbing (it hit 115=BA by the time we got to the hotel on Sunday afternoon). I mean, jeez, we'd left 95 =BA temps in Conn, thinking we'd get a break.
Anyway, like I was saying, we were driving down 101 toward Carmel for the 2nd part of our trip, and we came around a hill and the both of us noticed a distinct garlic scent in the air that grew stronger by the second. A minute later we passed a sign for Gilroy, and saw dozens of signs for farm stands selling cherries, strawberries, and yes,
*garlic*. Oy!We passed Gilroy, confident that it would be a long time before we would be attacked by vampires, and my wife was wondering about the smaell when a little thing began tickling the back of my brain, trying to work it's way to the jumbled fore-front of my conciousness. By the time we got to the next exit, it jumped out!
"Gilroy!" I told her, "and Steve's garlic festival!"
I got "the look", so I 'splained to her about steve "garlic dude" saling and the Gilroy garlic fest. I hadn't realized that it was that week, or I'd have turned around to check it out. And on the way back, we went up the Coast road, so we didn't go near Gilroy again.
Gents, I gotta tell ya - Steve is not exaggerating when he talks about the garlic out there. You could - and I mean this quite literally - smell garlic on the air for miles around this town, even at 70 mph through the AC. And a check of the local rags shows that they ahve the strangest stuff, like garlic jelly. Jelly?
Steve, we were wondering, though - I saw dozens of stand selling cherries, but I didn't see much in the way of trees out there. Where do you hide them? I was starting to believe that you were growing them on bushes or something.
BTW, beautiful country out there - so much different from New England. I can see why people want to live there.=20
moT