{"id":493851,"date":"2026-10-12T19:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493851\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T19:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:58:09","slug":"minnesota-man-drives-hauls-giant-pumpkin-over-2000-miles-to-california-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493851\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota man drives hauls giant pumpkin over 2,000 miles to California competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Minnesota man drove a giant pumpkin more than 2,000 miles to Half Moon Bay, California, to enter it in a competition dubbed the Super Bowl of weigh-offs on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off draws the world’s premier pumpkin growers eager to claim glory and possibly break a world record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minnesota resident Travis Gienger<\/a>, who had won the competition four times before this year, said he drove his giant piece of produce 2,150 miles to participate.<\/p>\n

“It was stressful, you know. You’re white-knuckling it and then going through Tahoe. You got all the trucker bumps, and yeah, it’s an incredible journey,” Gienger said.<\/p>\n

\"20261012-mon0088-ca-pumpkin-weigh-off-sot-minnesota-man-competes-for-world-record.jpg<\/p>\n

A giant pumpkin driven from Minnesota sits in a trailer in Half Moon Bay, California, on Oct. 12, 2026, ahead of a weigh-off competition.<\/p>\n

KPIX<\/p>\n

Gienger won Monday’s event, with his pumpkin weighing in at 2,389 pounds, though it fell short of the personal competition record he set in 2023 with a 2,749-pound entry.<\/p>\n

Around 45 people entered into this year’s competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gienger said the city, the event and Safeway are what keep him coming back each year.<\/p>\n

Half Moon Bay is around 29 miles south of San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Minnesota man drove a giant pumpkin more than 2,000 miles to Half Moon Bay, California, to enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,4226],"class_list":["post-493851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-minnesota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}