Romancing the Old West: Alisal Guest Ranch

* I was a sponsored guest of Alisal Guest Ranch, but all opinions are my own

Last week in Central California, I went back a-ways in time, to the Alisal Guest Ranch‘s slow, green and peaceful slice of the Old West.

At this working ranch/rustic chic resort, you can ride horses over rolling hills as as golden light settles on the lake, sip hand-crafted wines beneath a sky full of stars, and sway to some cowboy poetry. It’s a lovely place to rediscover some frontier history… and each other.

For about six sunny months of the year, Alisal is the Catskills of the West, or as I like to call it, Dirty Square Dancing.

Since the ranch added a resort back in 1946, many of the same families have been spending their extended summers here and — beyond some bathroom updates and the recent addition of a small spa — want Alisal to stay as it’s always been: a comfortable place to stay by a crackling fire, eat locally-sourced cuisine and play on a 10,000-acre working cattle ranch.

However, thanks to these loyal families, it’s nearly impossible to find a room here from May to September.

The good news is, before Memorial Day, there’s plenty of room to stretch out by the pool, learn how to ride Western, book a signature spa treatment, play tennis or golf, go fishing by the lake, or just roam aimlessly through the lilacs and wildflowers. And soon after Labor Day, it’s harvest time in the surrounding Santa Ynez and Santa Maria wine valleys. Weather permitting at any time of year, the resort can arrange for walking tours to local wine tasting rooms in the adjacent town of Solvang (a Danish homage replete with windmills and waffle cookies), or you can borrow a couple of bikes and explore on your own. Don’t miss a stellar barbecue with tender grass-fed steak, the sweetest beets you’ve ever had, and fresh-baked jalapeño-corn muffins.

During the offseason, Alisal offers two ideal packages for couples:

Wine & Roses includes daily breakfast and dinner, all activities on the ranch and a couples massage, as well as lots of goodies and wine (like, for instance, the Alisal’s smoky and gorgeous house pinot noir.) The three-day, two-night package is available September 2010-May 2011, midweek and weekends. ($1,850-$2,150 per couple)

Couples Bootcamp, held October 14-17, 2010, provides an all-inclusive pass to the best of Alisal. All meals and activities are included, like lakeside and winemaker dinners, fly-fishing and two-step lessons, a moonlight hay ride and more. ($2,750 per couple)

The latter specifically includes my hands-down favorite activity at the ranch, a morning ride to the Old Adobe. You’ll each be matched with one of the ranch’s 100 quarter horses — like the infamous and barrel-shaped  Lil’ Moe, who affects an impressive yoga-bend for grass snacks — and led by guides on rolling trails over creeks and through groves of enormous sycamores. (“Alisal” means sycamore in native Chumash.) It’s an hour in and back to a re-created 1930s clay adobe house chock full of stuffed game and antiques; while seated outside before a groaning flapjack breakfast, you’ll be entertained by a softly singing cowboy and the tale of how the Alisal Ranch and the Old Adobe came to be.

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GETTING TO ALISAL:

By car: Alisal is halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, about a three-hour drive from either.

By train: From as far south as San Diego, Alisal can be reached by Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, which stops nearby; north of San Luis Obispo, connections can be made with the San Joaquin route.

By plane: Nearby, there are two commercial airports. The closest is Santa Maria (SMX), with daily United Express connections from LAX. The other is about 40 minutes away in Santa Barbara (SBA), with United, American and Delta connections from L.A., San Francisco, Phoenix, Seattle and more.