March 24-30, 2005

naked city

After the Pinot

Turf and Surf: Horseback riding at Alisal Guest Ranch and the historic Stearns Wharf (below) both offer stunning vistas.

There's more to wine country than you saw in Sideways.

by Toby Zinman

I was attending a conference at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California in Santa Barbara (a campus which comes complete with its own surfing beach!), and after all the quantum leaping, I decided it was time to play. I was lucky with the weather; after all the terrible rain and mud slides we saw on TV news, I had days of blue skies and bright sunshine. Natives assure me that this great weather is the usual, part of the legendary Southern California deal.

This is Sideways territory — although not a single resident I asked had seen the movie — and I headed over the mountains into the wine country of the nearby Santa Ynez Valley. I wasn't going for the wine (there are vineyard tours and tasting shops for small, local labels everywhere) but to a ranch for horseback riding. The Alisal Guest Ranch is 10,000 acres of gorgeous countryside; there's a superb golf course, many tennis courts, a swimming pool and a lake for fly fishing and boating. The rooms are rustically luxurious with woodburning fireplaces, and the food is delicious. But mainly there are horses.

Now we shift movies to City Slickers.

For any novice rider, the first surprise when you swing your leg ever-so-coolly over the saddle is how high off the ground horses are. The next surprise is how wide they are. But the wrangler (an old rodeo guy with a million horse jokes) kept me and Concho at a gentle, leisurely pace for two lovely hours. The next day, I even tried trotting (there is clearly some technique here I don't know about; it couldn't be right that your teeth feel like they might fall out). There were delicate deer at the top of a hill and furry cattle watching us from the side of the trail; in the distance you can see the Reagan ranch, what had been the "Western White House."

Returning to the city along the coastal route, there are splendid vistas wherever you look: mountains on one side and ocean on the other. Santa Barbara is one of those places of immaculate, manicured beauty. It defines Southern California in my mind — relaxed, quiet, friendly, privileged — and it struck me the way these wonderful places always strike me as vaguely unreal. Maybe I just like the noise and the grit and the texture of East Coast urban. But for a visit, when the wind chill in Philly is in negative numbers, you can't beat it.

Note to all-too-gritty SEPTA: Santa Barbara has an electric shuttle that runs along the waterfront to the Santa Barbara Zoo and up and down State Street, the main shopping area. It runs every 30 minutes and costs 25 cents. It's also a great walking town, despite the blank looks Californians give you when they hear you actually want to go somewhere without a car. The afternoon farmers' market features everything organic, from bunches of lavender to piles of avocadoes; street singers with guitars entertain the passersby — one singer to a block, no crowding, no overlapping music.

My hotel, the Oceana, has its perfect location to recommend it — facing the Pacific between Stearns Wharf, the historic wooden pier, and the Harbor marina to which I headed to whale watch. The gray whales migrate from Mexico to Alaska in February and March, using the coastline to guide them, and within minutes of boarding the boat we saw a pair of them. Grays are smaller whales, about 35 feet long, and we lingered with the engine idling, watching their huge curved backs emerge from the water as they circled the boat.

Just as things were becoming both boring and nauseating, the captain tore off toward open ocean. We streaked along into the wind and the sun until we saw what he had already seen: a swirling mass of birds in the air. We got close enough to tell they were gulls and pelicans, diving and whirling. Looking down, we saw the water seething with about a hundred dolphins — leaping and diving and flinging themselves into the air, almost near enough to touch. And in the midst of all this commotion were two immense humpback whales about 60 feet long. They would breach, their heads up out of the water, and then dive down with their tails flipping, doing the classic whale show. All these creatures had found a giant school of anchovies and were having a fabulous feast. Even if you're seasick (as I always am on small boats), it's thrilling.

And just in case you think I forgot: The pinot really is excellent.

For information on Alisal Guest Ranch (no phones, no televisions, 100 horses), visit www.alisal.com or call 800-4-ALISAL. For whale-watching info: Condor Express has three trips a day on a 75-foot catamaran with highly knowledgeable commentary, visit www.condorcruises.com or call 805-882-0088. For information on Hotel Oceana, visit www.hotel-oceana.com or call 805-965-4577. Just the place after a physics conference: Quantum Restaurant, 201 W. Carillo St., is ultracool, ultrafusion, with an imaginative tasting menu for food and wine, and jazz on Thursday evenings, visit www.mondialsantabarbara.com or call 805-884-0885.