[lonewacko_dot_com]

Alpine is at the far end of nowhere. There's nothing south of it except ghost towns and Big Bend National Park. You need to drive 70 miles to the nearest larger city, Fort Stockton. All Fort Stockton has is a four-mile long business strip off 10 with a Dairy Queen, a Sonic, a McDonald's, a Wal*Mart, a bunch of cheap motels (the East Indian-owned ones on the east side aren't as bad as you might expect for the price), and a Chinese restaurant.

Alpine has a bunch of art galleries and it even has a WiFi hotspot at a trailer park. I was in the area for a few days, but I didn't think the people there were any dumber than people would be in such an environment. It's also near a university observatory, so people from a larger institution than Sul Ross are in the area.

Now, the people in Fort Ross...

[MikeD]

Hey, don't knock Fort Stockton, they also have a Pizza Hut and a Subway!

Seriously, I was driving a Ryder truck with a sounding rocket in the back at the beginning of December and blew a tire 80 miles east of Ft. Stockton. It took two hours for the tow-truck to arrive with a new tire. I'll never forget Mile Marker 334 on I-10...

MD