Best road trips to California’s weird and wonderful festivals in 2025

This is a three-day, 50-mile race across “land, sand, water and mud,” from Arcata through Eureka to Ferndale, founded by sculptor Hobart Brown in 1969. Racers’ kinetic sculptures are judged on art, engineering, pageantry and speed. The race course includes Manila Dunes and the Eel River. There are many prizes, including the Mediocre Award for the team that finishes dead middle. (Unique as this event may seem, there are other kinetic sculpture races and parades in Baltimore; Corvallis, Ore.; Key West; Klamath Falls, Ore.; Lowell, Mass.; and Port Townsend, Wash.

When: May 24-26 (Memorial Day weekend)

Don’t miss: The Rutabaga Ball, on the first night of the competition. That’s where they crown the Rutabaga Queen. Anyone can run for queen, an honor “selected by a private panel who answer not to rhyme or reason, only to choosing the very best Queen.”

Around town: The Victorian architecture on Ferndale’s Main Street and the Redwood Skywalk in Eureka’s Sequoia Park Zoo.

Where to sleep: Victorian Inn, built from local redwoods in 1890.

Other California fests in May: The Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee, Angels Camp, May 15-18; California Strawberry Festival in Ventura, May 17-18; Mule Days in Bishop, May 21-26; Strawberry Music Festival in Grass Valley, May 22-26; and Apricot Fiesta in Patterson, May 30-June 1.