The hook
The cruising culture George Lucas grew up in became American Graffiti, and Modesto still cruises McHenry Avenue every summer to prove the movie right.
01Why it's worth it
George Lucas was born in Modesto in 1944, and the long teenage summer nights he spent cruising its main drag in the early '60s became American Graffiti, the 1973 film that made his name and more or less invented the nostalgia for that whole era. The town leans into it happily. A bronze sculpture downtown, a boy and girl perched on a '57 Chevy at the old cruise corner, marks the tradition, and every June the Graffiti Summer festival fills the streets with hundreds of classic cars cruising McHenry Avenue the same way Lucas's characters cruised "Draggin' 10th." It's about the most Central Valley thing there is: a working farm town that turned its main street and its most famous kid into a summer-long party. Come for the festival if you can; the rest of the year the statue and the old 1912 Modesto Arch downtown carry it.
02How to experience it
Modesto is about an hour and three-quarters from the Bay. The American Graffiti sculpture sits at the five-point McHenry Avenue intersection downtown, near the arch that reads "Water Wealth Contentment Health." Time it for the Graffiti Summer festival and cruise in June for the full effect; otherwise it's a quick stop to see the statue and the arch on the way through the valley.