Southern California Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities, & Other Offbeat Stuff
Southern California Curiosities is your round-trip ticket to the wildest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the lower half of the Golden State has to offer. Humorist and veteran journalist Saul Rubin has traveled way off Southern California’s beaten path for one-of-a-kind gems that make his home turf truly unique. \ \ You’ll meet the world’s loudest finger snapper, a man who teaches etiquette to camels, and a couple who built a house that spins. \ \ You’ll discover the...
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A guide to the offbeat people, places, and events that make Southern California even stranger than readers might think!
\ A Festival That Draws Lots of Dips\ Fallbrook\ \ It's no secret what keeps the town of Fallbrook humming along: It's the avocados. Avocado trees were first planted here in 1912 and today the town's hundreds of small avocado groves generate more than $26 million in annual revenue. Fallbrook's designation as the avocado capital of the world is hard earned, an honor celebrated since the mid-1980s with an avocado festival. There's plenty of guacamole dip at the fair for sure, with pros and amateurs alike competing for best recipe awards. Other contests are more intriguing, such as the Avo Olympics, which features intense competition in avocado pit spitting and avocado croquet. Then there's the Avocado 500, where contestants outfit avocados with wheels to see which fruit is the fastest. Car crashes here are no problem--they're just scooped up with tortilla chips. Most peculiar of all, perhaps, is the contest to determine the best-dressed and best-decorated avocados.\ \ It's no surprise that the avocado-themed town has a number of Mexican restaurants. One, La Caseta, decided in 1992 to make one heck of a super burrito. It weighed 2,237 pounds and measured three feet wide and 36 feet long, establishing a world record that it held for a few years. It's a good thing that the town had enough guacamole around to complement the super-sized entrée.\ \ For more information about the avocado festival, visit the town's website at www.fallbrookca.org or call 760-728-5845.
IntroductionviiiMetropolitan Los Angeles1Greater Los Angeles55Orange Coast and San Diego Region93Palm Springs Area and Southern Desert Region139Central Valley, Deserts, and Sequoia National Park179Central Coast219Index265About the Author269
