HAPPY TRAILS GREENHORNS LEAVE STRESS OF THE CITY FAR BEHIND ON CENTRAL COAST CATTLE DRIVE.

Byline: Story and photos by Eric Noland Travel Editor

SANTA MARGARITA - Curly was there.

Really. A dead ringer for the colorful character in the movie ``City Slickers.'' He was 60-ish, with a complexion made ruddy by the sun, a pointed neckerchief at his collar and jingling spurs on his boots. He'd be gregarious one minute, gruff and all-business the next. His name was Jack.

He was along to help push 125 cattle and 11 dudes on a two-day drive over open ranch country northeast of San Luis Obispo.

If you asked Jack where he was from, he'd say, ``Oh, I've lived all over.'' Around the fire ring, he could two-step impeccably in the dirt, then be heard inquiring smoothly of his cowgirl dancing partner, ``You ever get down to Tucson?'' During the sing-along, I noticed that he knew all the words to ``Just a Closer Walk With Thee.''

Later, upon opening a can of soda, he said, ``The only time I ever went to jail, I was drinking root beer.'' Someone remarked that it sounded like a good story; care to tell it? ``No.''

Jack was just one element of the urban antidote contained in the Lazy Arrow and Lazy JR Cattle Drive, a Central Coast enterprise newly launched by Santa Margarita ranchers Mark and Felicia Morrison and John Rudnick. Their families own side-by-side ranches that encompass about 50,000 acres, so they have a lot of room to roam.

They conducted two drives at the end of May, will stage another the weekend of Oct. 24-26, and plan to operate roughly on that schedule each year.

When I signed up for one of the May drives, I kept my expectations low, figuring it would be the customarily hokey tourist outing - you know, a follow-the-leader trail ride alongside a few cattle that walk listlessly from one end of a flat pasture to the other. Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo.

What a pleasant deviation from this it turned out to be. There was a healthy degree of authenticity to the drive, and plenty of hands-on participation.

Over three days at the ranches, we spent 15 hours in the saddle. On the two-day drive, we pushed the herd about 18 miles through rolling, buff- colored countryside dotted with oak trees, all of it gloriously undeveloped. We picked our way up steep-sided ravines, over high ridge tops, through long valleys perforated with the burrows of ground squirrels.

And it wasn't a case of the dudes hanging in the rear of the pack and watching the hired wranglers do all the work (although some of the guests were content with that). If you were inclined, you got put to work.

``Tilman, Eric, come with me,'' Rudnick, the trail boss, said on the first morning of the drive. ``Help me turn the cattle out.'' He touched his heels to the flanks of his horse and was off at a canter. We had little choice but to follow.

Soon we were in a corral, up to our stirrups in cattle, and they slowly rose, stamped, lowed, waggled their heads (many of which were topped with nasty-looking horns common to this Brahma-mix breed). We joined a couple of the cowboys who were riding around the edge of the herd, shouting exhortations like ``Hup!'' and ``Ho!'' (a novice, I opted for Hank Kingsley's ``Hey now''), and slowly guided the great beasts up a muddy slope and through a gate.

``Wow, you really feel the adrenalin,'' said Tilman. This was certainly a long way from his high-rise apartment on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, where he resides for his job as an executive headhunter in the tech industry.

Tilman neatly fit the profile of cattle drive guest. There were no fewer than three executives from the high-tech world, all welcoming an opportunity to dabble in the Old West to stave off fast-track flame-out. ``I flew 300,000 air miles in 1999,'' sighed Jeff, a Bay Area consultant who'd recently retired under a golden parachute. ``I think I'm on pace for that right now,'' offered Peter, who maintains a home on the West Coast while working for an Internet company in the East.

There was also a Pasadena physician with her two college-age kids, an insurance claims adjuster from San Diego, a body shop owner from Pasadena, assorted adventuresome wives and girlfriends, and a sprinkling of teenage kids (for liability reasons, children under 12 aren't allowed on the drive).

Guests pay $1,000 for the three-day, three-night escapade. That includes a couple of nights in a cabin at the Morrisons' ranch, a camp-out on the cattle drive, a series of hearty meals (including wine and beer), nightly fireside entertainment, demonstrations of cowboy work (roping, calf branding, horse training) and of course an awful lot of horseback riding. When you figure it costs $20 to plod along on a horse for an hour in Griffith Park, you account for a good bit of the cost just in the saddle.

Although a little riding experience is helpful, it is by no means essential. The ranchers do a nice job of matching the horseflesh to the dudes' level of ability. Also, these horses aren't the sorry plugs you find on most trail rides but are instead well-trained cow ponies. Mine, Gunsmoke, responded to every command in an instant, herded wayward cattle as if by instinct and stood stock-still with the slightest tug of the reins.

It was intriguing to observe the effect of the weekend undertaking on the various guests. A boy of middle-school age seemed to welcome the opportunity to break out of the sphere of his parents' influence and test himself a little. When a cowboy instructed him to head up a hillside and ride along the flank of the herd, preventing strays from wandering loose, he got the job done without Dad's help, and seemed to ride a little taller in the saddle for it.

Because of the teamwork required, and the rigors of activity rarely undertaken in the city, it occurred to me that this would be ideal for a corporate retreat or a family reunion.

The enterprise certainly brings out some interesting personality quirks.

I'll call one the Wild Man syndrome. One of the guests arrived at the ranch with full regalia - chaps, boots, hat, leather gloves, bandanna. But when we embarked on a three-hour shakeout ride the first day (used to assess the riding ability of each guest and match up a horse accordingly) he demonstrated an uncanny reluctance to follow even the simplest of instructions. Off he'd ride, this way and that, no matter what he was told to do.

On the walk back to the stable, he would inexplicably gather the reins in his free hand and slap them repeatedly against the saddle. The next day, before the two-day overnight ride began, he was quietly given a different horse - presumably one he couldn't hurt himself on.

Another personality was Cowgirl Wannabe. This was a woman who had probably done a little riding before or perhaps had a Shetland pony as a girl. One day on the ranch and she seemed to fancy herself as a full-fledged wrangler, answering questions with ``Yup'' and - worse - instructing fellow guests as to what they were doing wrong on the cattle drive.

While riding at the front of the herd, I guided Gunsmoke off to the side to take a picture. Cowgirl Wannabe rode by and barked, ``Lead or follow.'' I decided at that point that it would be more pleasant riding drag at the back of the herd, dust or no dust.

To their credit, the real cowhands on the drive - male and female - weren't the least bit pushy. Often at horseback stables, the wranglers can be sullen, perhaps resentful that their livelihood is dependent on greenhorns. That wasn't the case on this drive. They were pleasant and unfailingly patient - even with Wild Man. They also let you learn things and correct missteps on your own.

``Missed one,'' Justin said quietly as he rode past me in a dry river bed in the middle of nowhere. I turned and, sure enough, there was a steer behind me headed for the shade of a bush. Now how did that one get back there? Didn't matter; it was my job to ride over and guide it back to the herd.

``Turn your horse,'' Rudnick said at one point to Wild Man, who responded by stroking the horse's neck. ``I didn't say pet him, I said turn him,'' Rudnick said firmly. ``I think your horse is learning you faster than you're learning him.''

During breaks, it was fun to eavesdrop on the cowboys' world. Most of the hands are just country guys, accepting odd jobs so they can be out here astride a horse and not stuck in some city job. Around the fire ring particularly, when they get a chance to unwind a little, you hear them talk about techniques for breaking a horse, Ford truck engines, livestock auctions in Hanford or tales of thwarted love at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez.

They genuinely buy into this lifestyle, too. One cowpoke named Scott told me he's done a little construction work in the San Gabriel Valley, adding with a slight drawl, ``Anything to put beans on the table.''

The cattle drive, so romanticized on the screen and in fiction, was a short-lived phenomenon, lasting only about 20 years immediately following the Civil War. Cowboys, many of them Mexican or African-American, would push herds from Texas up to railroad hubs in Kansas to sate the appetite for beef in the East. The expansion of rail networks and the invention of barbed wire quickly eliminated the need for the epic drive.

Yes, the cowboys would subsist largely on beans and a jerky-like bacon, because both traveled well and it wasn't cost-effective to consume your product along the trail. They'd also travel 1,200 miles, spend months in the saddle, endure perilous river crossings and quell stampedes that could be triggered by something as innocuous as a surprised jackrabbit.

The cowboys could afford to take sleep or food only in snatches, since without corrals they had to be the human fence for the cattle.

And their numbers game shamed ours. On a 19th-century drive, it wasn't unusual to have one cowboy for every 250 cows. On ours, we had 25 riders ... for 125 cattle.

We ate and slept a lot better, too. Dinners included grilled rib-eye steaks, oysters, ribs, salmon, chicken, vegetables, salads, corn ears grilled in their husks, Dutch oven corn bread, hot fruit cobblers and even banana splits. There was good local wine by the magnum and bottled beer on ice.

At the campsite, there were warm-water showers, flush toilets, canvas tents and innerspring mattresses on many of the cots.

The fire ring blazed every night, and musicians played music of the Sons of the Pioneers, Patsy Cline, Gene Autry, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. Skip, a Carmel real estate broker and friend of the owners, recited some hilarious cowboy poetry.

On the overnight, I dragged my cot out from beneath the oaks and slept in the open, which afforded an unimaginably clear view of the Milky Way in the middle of the night.

The cattle drive needs to work out a few wrinkles. At the camp-out, the cooks didn't get dinner on the table until nearly 9 p.m., and guests, having spent six hours in the saddle that day, were falling asleep in their plates. The next day, the final leg of the drive dragged a bit in the morning, such that we didn't come in off the trail until almost 3:30 p.m. - having spent another six hours on horseback in 90-degree heat without lunch, bathroom stops or sufficient water breaks.

But the Morrisons and Rudnick are still fine-tuning this fledgling enterprise, and they vow to smooth out some of the rough spots by the time the next drives are held in the fall.

Besides, I didn't hear any complaints from Jack.

Eric Noland, [phone]

eric.noland(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: The Camatta Ranch, where the Lazy Arrow and Lazy JR Cattle Drive originates, is a 33-mile drive northeast of San Luis Obispo. Drive north on U.S. 101 and turn east on Highway 58 at Santa Margarita. The ranch is just past Shell Creek Road. Another option - but certainly much less scenic - is to head north from Los Angeles on Interstate 5 and take Highway 58 west at Buttonwillow. The ranch is about 65 miles from I-5 on this route.

PARTICULARS: The next cattle drive will be held Oct. 24-26. Cost is $1,000 per person, including all meals, accommodations, riding, demonstrations and entertainment. Children under age 12 are not permitted on the drive.

WHAT TO BRING: Most of the ride is fully exposed to the elements, with very little shade, so a sun hat (or cowboy hat), sunglasses, sunscreen and long sleeves are important. Jeans provide good protection against brush and saddle friction. Cowboy boots are best for riding, as they have a heel that prevents your foot from slipping through the stirrup. I got by with hiking boots, although the cowboy who saddled my horse was dubious. Some people brought leather gloves to avoid getting blisters from holding leather reins for hours on end. You'll need a sleeping bag for the overnight.

INFORMATION: [phone]; www.lazyarrow.com.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) The Lazy Arrow and Lazy JR Cattle Drive in ranch country northeast of San Luis Obispo, top, wranglers and dudes push a herd through a cleft in the oak-studded landscape. At the end of the first day of the drive, saddles are line up on a corral fence to dry, right. On the campout, the morning starts with gravy for the biscuits, above, rustled up by Felicia Morrison.

(4 -- 5 -- color) The Lazy Arrow and Lazy JR Cattle Drive stretches across 18 miles of ranch land northeast of San Luis Obispo, top. Participants earn their spurs with the help of real cowboys and get to see almost every aspect of ranch life, including a branding demonstration, above.

(6 -- color) A pot of hot coffee provides welcome fuel for the ride ahead.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)

Map:

Lazy Arrow and Lazy JR Cattle Drive

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist