Sunland-Tujunga Lions Watermelon Festival, Los Angeles

The mighty watermelon—summer's favorite fruit (and vegetable, too)—gets a grand salute at The 55th Annual Watermelon Festival. This juicy celebration features a hand-, mouth-, and eyeful of unique contests, festivities, and fun for families and melon-mavens alike. Here are just a few of the highlights

• Best Place to Be: Free watermelon for every ticket holder, action-packed contests such as watermelon skiing, culinary demonstrations, fantastic watermelon carvings, bands, music, food, lots of interesting exhibitors plus five watermelon world record attempts by Guinness Book of World Records holder Ron Sarchian
• Best Messy Contests: Try your balance and skill at watermelon skiing, go face first into a watermelon eating contest, use your mouth-musket to shoot baby melons across the Watermelon Spit-way in a seed-spitting contest
• Best Mellow Activities: Observe the action from a 65-foot ferris wheel at the carnival, or take the wee ones for pony rides, petting zoo cuteness, and felty storytelling from the Melo-n-dramatic Puppet Theater
• Best Kid's Zone: Free melon-dramatic children's theater, free pony ride or petting zoo for every child ticket, stunt riders in the BMX Bike Show, kid's games, baloon hats and animals, arts and crafts, face painting, pony rides and petting zoo plus a full carnival