Your job: Decide to get out of town and fast. Our job: Help you find where you're headed. This week, NBCLA's Worth the Drive takes us to...
The California Lemon Festival: Let the title inform you. "California" is the purveyor of luscious citrus since, oh, citrus was invented. "Lemon" is a famously sunny citrus. "Festival" is a party of large proportions. Perfectly clear in its intentions. And it's in Goleta. Which is a couple of hours from...
The Pismo Beach Clam Festival: Again, a crystal-clear name. It's at pretty Pismo Beach, and there will be clams. There will likely be people dressed in giant clam costumes. And clammy eats? You bet.
Dates: Both the Goleta lemon party and the Pismo clam hootenanny are going down on Saturday, October 17th and Sunday, October 18th.
Here's the thing: These are probably not "there-and-back-in-a-day" suggestions. Maybe Goleta, if you make a go of it. But. If you are lemon crazy, and you like to go squelchy in the ears -- we've discussed the lemon-based ear-squelchy-ness before -- and you could practically drink clam chowder like water, maybe a night away on the Central Coast is what you're needing.
Driving time: Goleta is two hours-ish from downtown LA; Pismo Beach is probably in the four-to-five-hour range.
Will it be beautiful? After all this rain? This is what the weatherman says about Pismo. Cool and fall-like is the report. We're practically rolling up our jeans and grabbing a tiny shovel now.
Pismo's not-so-secret clam sitch: The days of the beaches being covered in clams are long gone; Pismo Beach is rather clam-less these days. It got over-clammed, some say. But, that doesn't stop the seaside burg from celebrating its star bivalve. They just truck the savory suckers in and party on, making lemonade out of lemons. Which reminds us of a festival down the highway...
