BACK ROADS OF THE CENTRAL COAST.

Byline: Story by Eric Noland Travel Editor

Is that a UFO?

It's a precise line of rectangular lights, moving horizontally at considerable speed, accompanied by a rushing sound. Behind it is only the inky blackness of the night.

No. Wait. It's a passenger train, up on the hill, hurtling past the campground here at Jalama Beach. It's just a strange sight to view through the flap of a tent in the wee hours, when you're disoriented both by deep sleep and the unimaginable stillness of one of the Central Coast's most remote corners.

Solitude and serenity can be had in abundance, in fact, along a stretch of coastline that reaches from about Point Conception, just above Santa Barbara, to Pismo Beach. For some reason, it is largely overlooked by travelers.

Maybe that's because northbound Highway 101, which bends inland at the Gaviota tunnel, is such a pleasant drive in its own right.

Reputation probably also works against this region. Vandenberg Air Force Base sprawls over most of it, and accessibility to that reservation is severely limited - all the more so during the war on terrorism. Neither are the working-class towns of Lompoc and Santa Maria considered tourist draws - deservedly.

But here to the west of 101, Highway 1 describes a circuitous route of about 52 miles before it rejoins the main highway in Pismo. This coastal stretch is also interlaced with dozens of country roads, and if you can shrug off the blight of the occasional agricultural processing plant, trailer park or oil refinery, you're sure to stumble upon numerous treasures of the area.

These include a vast expanse of coastal dunes, sculpted by the winds and punctuated with wildflowers; the smell of tri tip roasting over red-oak coals, as a fund-raising club serves up Santa Maria-style barbecue in a shopping center parking lot; bright-orange Monarch butterflies alighting in squadrons in a grove of eucalyptus trees; a meticulously restored California mission, with dirt pathways and barnyard animals; miles of unspoiled beach on which to walk; and of course a campground where the view from your tent can take in the tumbling surf and an impossibly brilliant display of stars.

What you won't find are resorts, designer boutiques, bed-and-breakfast inns and the kind of tourist offerings that traditionally attract travelers. Enjoy the rough edges of this coast and its communities while they last.

Just west of Santa Maria, for example, Main Street crosses rusty railroad tracks and picks its way between the Guadalupe Cemetery and a field of broccoli before reaching the gate to the Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve. Head on to the beach parking lot, and try not to be unnerved by the pockmarked road and the drifts of sand that have nearly consumed it.

A walk south along the beach, and ultimately into the dunes themselves, is a singular experience.

The dunes were formed when silt flushed out of the Santa Maria River Valley thousands of years ago and then was swept by on-shore winds into towering mounds. They rise to heights as great as 450-foot Mussel Rock, 2 1/2 miles to the south, and if you venture deep into this sandy landscape until the green rolling hills inland are obscured, you might feel as if you're lost in the Sahara.

The surface is sculpted into corduroy ridges by the wind. Tiny birds scurry about, so well-camouflaged that you lose sight of them with only a slight turn of your head. Misshapen humps of sand are crowned with ice plant. Where the dunes support green clumps of vegetation, some wildflowers have already begun to pop out, with the peak of the bloom expected next month.

This strange world has been a popular stand-in for forbidding deserts in Hollywood films, dating to the silent era. Cecil B. DeMille had a massive set built here to create a City of the Pharaoh for his 1923 epic ``The Ten Commandments.''

After filming was finished, the cheaply built sphinxes and walls and statues - wood covered with plaster - were buried in the dunes just south of where the preserve road is today. (Environmental consciousness wasn't what it is today.) Archaeological efforts are under way to exhume as much as can be salvaged.

The beaches along this coast are wild, but in a welcome way. There are no oceanfront homes, and hence no fences, gates or belligerent no- trespassing signs. Neither is there anything to do with chic beach culture - just fishermen, families and surfers. You can walk for miles and have little more company than the shorebirds that skitter and soar along the water's edge.

Afterward, the drive north on Highway 1 will take you through Guadalupe, a farm-worker town with pre-World War I building facades and an astonishing concentration of Mexican restaurants - 11 in less than a mile on the main road through town. Watch for the Dunes Center on the left, housed in a 1910 Craftsman bungalow at 1055 Guadalupe St.

At this visitors center, which is only open Thursday through Sunday, you can learn about the dunes ecology, as well as the saga of that movie set - which has taken on the grandiose name ``the Lost City of DeMille.'' The helpful staffers also can alert you to free guided walks, often conducted at Oso Flaco Lake, just a bit farther north.

We elected to explore the lake and its dune system on our own, and were delighted to find two white pelicans gliding across the lake as we crossed it on the boardwalk that leads one mile out to the beach. It's a relatively flat and easy walk, and we even encountered a mom pushing a baby stroller along it.

Another fascinating wildlife encounter can be had at the Pismo State Beach Butterfly Grove, a little farther north on Highway 1, just past the towns of Oceano (with its 1904 train depot and quaint storefronts) and Grover Beach.

Monarch butterflies gather in the eucalyptus trees from October through March, feeding on the nectar of the tree's white flowers. They're particularly active on warm, sunny days, conditions we lucked into. Rangers at the park had posted a hand-lettered sign estimating the number of butterflies at 16,000 in the small grove.

Travelers along the Central Coast's back roads will conduct a futile search for lodgings of any character. The most desirable option we could find north of the campsite was in Pismo Beach, where a glorified motel, the Sandcastle Inn, had rooms overlooking the beach and Pismo's distinctive pier.

On the other hand, if you get hungry anywhere along these routes here, you're in luck.

We didn't realize we were ready for lunch until we happened upon a plume of barbecue smoke at the corner of Clark Avenue and Bradley Road in southern Santa Maria. Boy Scout Troop 87 was raising money by selling hearty plates of tri tip, beans, green salad and garlic bread for only $5.

On another day, at the same corner, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Chef Rick's. The inventive menu - including a sandwich of grilled salmon, bacon, lettuce and tomato - is complemented by an impressive selection of Santa Barbara County wines.

One night we braved the dips and curves of Black Road - it may have gotten its name from its utter absence of lights or reflectors - to the ramshackle little town of Casmalia. The road halts here at the gate to the Vandenberg base, but the dead end is well worth the drive because of the Hitching Post, a roadhouse grill that has been operated by the Ostini family since 1952 (a companion establishment in Buellton gets much more tourist traffic).

In an utterly unpretentious dining room, guests can watch the flames leap around chef Louis Meza as he tends the grill, alternately basting and sprinkling four different cuts of steak, racks of pork back ribs, lobster, quail and other entree items, as well as broiled artichoke appetizers.

Just as Casmalia was worthy of the night-drive adventure, you never know what delights the back roads of the Central Coast will yield. It's best to explore unhurriedly and randomly.

Santa Rosa Road, due east of Lompoc, courses through the Santa Rita Hills - a bucolic agricultural region of orchards and vineyards. Burgundian grapes are particularly content here. Be sure to stop in at the charming, shed-like tasting room at Sanford Winery, which can be found at the end of a meandering gravel road. Sanford bottles a delectable pinot noir, and each of the winery's labels features a local wildflower.

After a visit to La Purisima Mission, just outside Lompoc, we decided on a whim to wander up Harris Grade Road, and soon were surprised to be climbing through a forest of stunted conifers - an incongruous sight in the midst of so much crop and pasture land.

We were disappointed to find Brown Road, the rugged driving route to Point Sal, barred by a locked gate. This challenging four-wheel-drive track ostensibly was closed because of winter washouts, but the road also passes through the northern tip of the Air Force base, so it remains to be seen if it will reopen when the weather improves.

And then there is the road to Jalama Beach. At the highway junction, the sign says it's a 14-mile drive, but it's actually nearer 17. Getting to the beach is half the fun, though, as you pass farms and ranches, and wind through gullies and crest gentle hills. This year, in the wake of prodigious winter rains on the Central Coast, the landscape is a lush green, broken up by fragrant sage and clusters of oaks.

But the real charm, especially for urban refugees, is the utter dearth of development. The ranch land on both sides of the road is privately held, and the open land of the Air Force base spreads out to the north.

The county beach park charges $5 for day use, and it's a great spot for a picnic and a leisurely walk south between the crumbling bluffs and the water's edge. We found sand dollars, pearly abalone shells, driftwood, brittle slabs of shale, mussel shells.

As with much of this coastline along the Central Coast, the serenity here is no illusion - the nearest freeway is a 30-mile drive away.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: If you're headed north on Highway 101, the best way to fully explore the Central Coast back roads between Point Conception and Pismo Beach is to exit just past the Gaviota tunnel, taking Highway 1 toward Jalama Beach and Lompoc. Other westbound routes off 101 include Santa Rosa Road and Highway 246 (from Buellton), Highway 135 (through the Los Alamos Valley), Clark Avenue (to Orcutt) and Main Street (from Santa Maria to Guadalupe).

JALAMA BEACH COUNTY PARK: This is an excellent off-season camping option, but it is usually jammed from July 4 until early October - a situation made all the more exasperating by the park not taking advance reservations (it maintains a waiting list, but you have to be present to get on it and must also be present when your name is called for a vacant site). The campground's 110 sites go for $16 per night. Day use is $5. The park is pretty civilized for a campground: It has a store, snack bar, coin-operated showers, running water and clean bathrooms. [phone]; www.sbparks.org, www.jalamabeach.com (Web site for the store).

DUNES CENTER: 1055 Guadalupe St., Guadalupe. Open Thursday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Guided walks are offered in the dunes on weekends. [phone]; www.dunescenter.com.

RANCHO GUADALUPE DUNES PRESERVE: Western terminus of Main Street, Santa Maria. Donation of $3 per vehicle recommended.

OSO FLACO LAKE NATURAL AREA: Western terminus of Oso Flaco Lake Road, just north of Guadalupe. Fee of $4 per vehicle.

THE HITCHING POST: On Black Road, Casmalia (just under four miles from Highway 1). Steaks as small as 5 ounces (filet, $19.95) or as large as 22 ounces (T-bone, $34.95). Side dishes and dessert included. Excellent selection of local wines, reasonably priced. Open daily for dinner only. Reservations recommended: [phone]; www.hitchingpost1.com.

CHEF RICK'S: 4869 S. Bradley Road, Santa Maria. American cuisine - though all over the map, from Creole to New Mexican to comfort food. A lot of fresh fish on the menu, and generous salads. Open for lunch and dinner; closed Sunday. [phone]; www.chefricks.com.

SANFORD WINERY: 7250 Santa Rosa Road, Buellton. Tasting room open daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. [phone].

SANDCASTLE INN: 100 Stimson Ave., Pismo Beach. Rooms from $99 per night (continental breakfast included). Information and reservations: [phone] or [phone]; www.sandcastleinn.com.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Jalama Road, top, bends and dips through wide-open country as it links Highway 1 with a remote county beach park near Lompoc. Monarch butterflies, above, are plentiful in winter at a eucalyptus grove near Pismo Beach.

(3 -- color) Some of the tents can be pitched right in the dunes at Jalama Beach, just steps from the water's edge. The isolated campground is popular with surfers and fishermen.

(4 -- 6) A surfer enjoys the broad expanse of Pismo Beach at sunset, above. At Oso Flaco, pelicans glide on the lake, right, and children follow the boardwalk to the beach, below.

Photos by Eric Noland

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)

Map:

Central Coast

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist