Meza had never been to the city's premier event, one that routinely attracts more than 100,000 visitors to Christmas Hill Park, and he figured his one day layover for auto work was a good excuse to check it out.

"I smelled all that garlic and wondered, 'What the heck is that about?' " Meza recalled Thursday afternoon, 20 years after that fateful automotive breakdown.

Nowadays, Meza, 50, and his wife Linda, 46, are routinely among the first to show up at the festival, arriving two days before the opening of the gates the last Friday in July.

This year the couple managed to etch their names into the annals of Garlic Festival history by being the first to drive their recreational vehicle onto the rolling hayfields off Santa Teresa Boulevard.

"We love being here. We couldn't wait to get here," said Clem Meza, who arrived 10am Wednesday.

"It's so peaceful right now," chimed in Linda Meza, sitting under the RV's awning Thursday afternoon with her husband and Dixie, their 3-month-old Jack Russell Terrier.

The couple is on the first leg of their summer vacation. They plan to drive north Sunday to Oregon and visit family and friends before heading south to the Colorado River. The whole time they will rely on cell phones and laptops to stay wired to their two businesses - concrete and construction machinery rental companies - at home in Norco, Riverside County.

But first, it's time to eat.

The Mezas plan to also be first at the gates this morning so they can start devouring the garlic-packed goodies at dozens of vendors and at Gourmet Alley, the massive food operation at the heart of the festival. Seared calamari and bruschetta top their list of favorites. They also plan to pick up a few pounds of garlic for their friends and family, plus they may cave and buy a Herbie, the garlic-bulb-headed bobblehead doll that has grown into the festival's mascot.

Throughout the weekend, they plan to rest between meals and music under the shade of their RV's awning.

A broken refrigerator kept Tom Lapworth, whose RV is parked next to the Mezas, from claiming his traditional bit of fame as the first person to arrive at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. Lapworth, 72, usually arrives at the festival early the Wednesday before the gates open.

He may have still been edged out by the Mezas this year - he didn't plan to leave arrive until 8pm Wednesday but rolled in at 10:30pm instead - but he said it's not about competition.

"It's not that I like to get here first," said Lapworth, a retired executive chef from Palmdale. "I'm just the kind of person who likes to be early. I'm meeting a lot of people I've met over the years at the festival."

Lapworth attended his first festival 22 years ago. Since then he has only missed one event, in 2004, when he was on the North Pacific island of Palau. After suffering a heart attack four years ago, the 72-year-old transformed into a globe-trotting adventurer who is rapidly checking off items from the book, "1,000 Places to See Before You Die."

So far this year he's visited Hawaii, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

"I've been to the Panama Canal, the Great Wall in China, Pompeii," he said. "I'm just doing everything I can. I'm spending my kids' inheritance. I'm blowing it all and having a ball."

But Lapworth, who has been dubbed "the mayor of RV town" by festival organizers, also has a strain of the giving spirit as well, according to Judy Heinzen, a long-time festival organizer. She said Lapworth has volunteered for the last three or four years at the festival, helping one of dozens of groups earn money for local nonprofit programs.

"One of the most unusual things about Tom is not that he comes every year, but that he's actually a volunteer for one of the charities on the ground - the Gilroy Foundation's wine tent," she said, referring to Lapworth. "That's kind of unusual for a guest to come in and work. He goes in there and he works his heart out."