Foxen Canyon Road

Foxen Canyon Road is the back road through Santa Barbara wine country. It leaves Highway 154 at Los Olivos and runs north through oak-studded hills, vineyards and cattle ranches, past a string of wineries including Zaca Mesa and Foxen on gentle curves.

The road is named for William Benjamin Foxen, an English sailor who settled here on Rancho Tinaquaic in the 1840s; his ranch later served as a stagecoach station, and his descendants still own land and a winery along the road. Near the end you pass the Chapel of San Ramon, built by the Foxen family in his memory, the first historic landmark Santa Barbara County listed. The drive ends at Sisquoc, a tiny town whose name comes from the Chumash word for quail, before the road flattens out into the farmland toward Santa Maria.

It's driven north from Los Olivos, the end most people reach from Solvang and Santa Barbara.