Alpine, Texas

Staying safe on the road is more of an art than a science, but that doesn't mean practice makes perfect

The people who most often ask me how I stay safe in the van as a woman alone on the road are, ironically, men. If a woman asks, she’s generally interested in tips and lessons to take from my experience to make their time on the road – or in life – safer; when a man asks, there is almost always a tone of protection and skepticism. The former I find particularly funny, knowing how few men could actually keep themselves alive in their studio apartments without someone taking care of them, let alone in the woods by themselves. The latter, however, often hits with a more sinister tone, as if asking “how do you keep yourself safe” is silently, implicitly followed by “because I bet you’re not that safe.” 

Staying safe in the van is an ever-evolving practice, but I have cultivated a few lessons that I always stick to. I broke almost all of them in Alpine, Texas. 

Lesson One: Don’t Get Lost

There isn’t much direction to go from Big Bend National Park other than north unless you’re ready to cross the border. With the Rio Grande gently bobbing and weaving through the southernmost dip of the park, you can step freely between two countries on an otherwise uneventful hike. I spent an extended weekend in the park hiking and drying myself out after a bender in Austin during South by Southwest. I needed to force myself to disconnect from the overstimulation of the city, and there’s no better place to contemplate your impulsive life choices than West Texas. 

There is nothing along Highway 118 for about 80 miles until you hit the town of Alpine. Without cell service, I couldn’t check the map to make sure I was really going in the right direction, but how disoriented could I even get on a straight shot?

Driving into Alpine, I knew I didn’t have a place to sleep that night. I didn’t even really know where I was. This would have to be a side-of-the-road or abandoned-parking-lot kind of night. Not a big deal, especially considering I’d just spent the past five days in one of the more beautiful slices of desert in the country, camping under the stars in the Texas wilderness. But it can still be an unsettling experience without a plan or map to help you figure out where to safely rest for the night. 

Alpine is a town of about 6,000 people with one main road down the center. It didn’t really matter what the place was, it just mattered that I could find a place to eat and crash after a long day. I parked the van in the lot of an old bank, back in the corner, and walked across the street to Old Gringo Coffee and Cocktails in search of a good shitty margarita. 

Lesson Two: Don’t Get Drunk

I know that academically, socially, and theoretically, we, in the year 2022, understand that if a woman is assaulted when she’s drunk, it’s not her fault. Women can drink and wear slutty clothes and we all know – or we should all know – that the person who assaulted her is the one at fault. And even though I know this to be true, I also know that this debate only happens in hindsight. In the moment, if you get drunk and someone hurts you, the blame itself doesn’t really matter.

The mix of clientele at Old Gringo’s was a weird one: oil field workers, Boomer tourists on rented three-wheel motorcycles, actual Fu Manchu-having bikers, artsy West Texas hipsters, and me. I sat down at the corner of the bar and ordered a margarita.

“Sorry, we’re out of triple sec.”

“Really? Nothing to make any kind of margarita?”

“I think we have some margarita mix in the base-”

“Nope, no, no mix. I’ll just get a ranch water”

“What tequila?”

This is always where I show my ass. Never in my life have I known what kind of tequila to order, or which celebrity has the “good” tequila nowadays. At that moment, I knew I had to keep seeming like a badass who deserved to have that bone-handled knife strapped to my hip.

“You pick,” I told the bartender. Always a dangerous game. 

The man sitting next to me was somewhere in his 30s with blue eyes offset by dark circles under them. He was sitting quietly alone sipping a beer, still red in the face and dusty from working outside all day. 

He and the bartender knew each other – I’d venture to guess that most people sitting at the bar knew the bartender – and started giving him suggestions about what tequila to grab. I sat adjacent to this conversation about me, watching them laugh at different implications of tequila suggestions. “Oh, that one will really get her going!” I pretended not to notice.

The man took a warm shot of tequila with me, no salt, no lime. I was out of my fucking element. We chatted for a while and he told me that he ended up in Alpine the way most people end up in Alpine: oil. And heartbreak.

“I drove back home to Oklahoma once a month for three years to see her, but it just wasn’t enough. I can’t even see my son anymore.”

No he didn’t. He was painting me a sympathetic picture of himself as a caring boyfriend and father, a self-sacrificing man who works hard for his family. Someone who could be trusted. Weird that someone so trustworthy isn’t allowed to see their son anymore.

“Why would you leave Oklahoma if you wanted to be with her?”

“It’s good money here.”

“They don’t have money in Oklahoma?”

He turned for the first time towards me and said, with a slight smile: “Nothing like West Texas.”

I was enjoying hearing about his drama and engaged even more. I called bullshit on him. “If you love her and wanted to actually be with her, it wouldn’t matter. The money wouldn’t matter. Men will find any, and I mean any excuse not to commit. ‘Oh, I’ll come see you on my schedule but as long as I always have the excuse to leave when things get rough?’ Get fucked. And now you’re crying to me, like she left you?”

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

Of course, it’s not. “Of course it is! Either be with her or don’t. Shit or get off the pot.”

He smiled and ordered two more shots of tequila. 

Lesson Three: Be Nice, But Not Too Nice

Why would a single woman be sitting alone at a bar taking shots with a strange man if not to go home with him later? Lots of reasons, most of them related to just not wanting to be alone. Loneliness is, above all else, boring. It’s boring to sit in a van in the desert and read a book because you don’t have cell service to scroll on the internet. It’s boring to sit alone at a bar and have to entertain yourself. It’s boring to have stories with no one to tell them to. 

I wasn’t looking to get laid or even for a little harmless male validation at this bar. I was just really bored. I wanted to argue with someone, or get advice from a bartender that I would never take, or tell somebody about this beautiful hike I’d just spent all day on.

Most women know that feeling of realization that the person they’re talking to thinks something is going to happen, and she knows that it simply is not going to happen. But you can’t just outright say “it’s not going to happen” because then it becomes a fun little challenge for them. A classic “Baby It’s Cold Outside” situation. Plus, you run the risk of sounding uppity or prudish – neither trait I actually care about seeming –- and the tone can turn from “we’re having fun just chatting at a bar” to “well fuck you, I didn’t want to take you home any way you fat bitch” (a real thing a man has said to me after I kindly rejected him. I no longer bother with being kind). 

There were no red or even yellow flags from the man at the Alpine bar yet, aside from the ever-present flag of being a man. But there was a calculation happening in the back of my mind: if I was too friendly, he’d think I’m flirting, and that’d be a whole thing I’d have to deal with later; if I wasn’t friendly enough, I’d sit there alone and drink my warm tequila in silence. So I proceeded, with caution. 

Lesson Four: Know How to Use a Knife

Another man joined us two seats down, on my other side. He had a completely different look and energy from the oil man; this guy was around my age, a little less blue-collar but somehow scruffier. He sat down and ordered a tequila and Modelo and the three of us, plus the bartender intermittently, continued to swap stories and drink. 

Our new friend moved to Alpine to follow his artist girlfriend. He was also an artist of sorts, though I never learned about what he actually made. They’d moved there a few months prior from Marfa, where they had moved two years prior from Austin. I was much more interested in learning about this man’s life – and it helped to have a barrier in the word “girlfriend” lingering in the air, helping us cut quickly through the “is this person flirting with me?” stage and directly into the “now that we both know we’re not flirting, we can be friendly without tension” stage. This made it a lot easier to accept his invitation to step outside for a cigarette, which he would handroll meticulously with organic tobacco and weed. We continued our conversation about the town. 

“Marfa’s just so over. It’s way too expensive now. Real artists can’t live there anymore.”

Marfa is too mainstream these days? We’re over Marfa now? 

“Do you feel like you’re a part of a community here?” I asked him.

“There’s an artist community and a biking community, and it’s not hard to get to New Mexico from here. We find people, I guess.”

“Do you miss Austin?” 

“Fuck no. Austin hasn’t been Austin in, like, a decade. There aren’t any artists in Austin, just money launderers.” I didn’t think there was much going on in the high-end art dealership ecosystem in Austin, but the details of his frustration didn’t matter. 

Our oil friend stepped out to join us with his own Marlboro reds. I could tell he was annoyed to lose my attention, though he didn’t really have it to begin with. He noticed the bone-handled knife on my belt loop. “You even know how to use that thing?”

There was a similar air of condescension in this question reminiscent of when men ask me “how do you keep yourself safe?” They’re not actually looking for a real answer. They ask because they want to show or tell you how to be safe or how to use that knife. Or maybe he was just testing to see what I could do to him if I needed to. 

“Why would I have it if I didn’t know how to use it?” I asked, expressionless. Even a slight smile would seem flirtatious, and I was starting to course-correct from my earlier demeanor. 

It’s important to note here that I, in fact, do not really know how to use this knife. I use it for cutting fruit, trying to get splinters out of my fingers, and playing dress-up like a person who could use a knife. 

He continued, “you ever play that game where you stab between someone’s fingers as fast as you can?” 

I looked him in his eyes, head tilted down with my eyebrows arched high. “You wanna find out firsthand how well I can use this knife?”

I was entering into a game of chicken that I would certainly lose if I actually did have to start stabbing the arm of the wooden bench he was sitting on between his fingers. I would surely move way too slowly and cautiously, showing that I, in fact, did not know how to use this knife skillfully; or, maybe I was just drunk enough to go all-in and actually stab him. Either way, I’d look like an idiot. Luckily, he was just too chickenshit to call my bluff - or, possibly, just got bored of being antagonized - and backed off.

Lesson Five: Do Not Accept the Free Drugs 

The three of us continued to drink cheap beer, smoke spliffs, and talk about Alpine. The oil man hated being there and lamented about how there were no attractive single women in town. I didn’t bite at his softball neg. “Yeah, that sucks.” He frowned, dissatisfied that he couldn’t provoke me as much as before. 

“I actually love it here,” the artist said. “I mean, it’s still West Texas, but I’m a West fuckin Texas man. There’s art and inspiration everywhere, and I can actually afford to be here. The only thing that sucks are the cops.”

I added, “Yeah, but cops suck everywhere. Fuck cops.” 

The artist and the oil man both laughed. Some common ground between all three of us: not trusting the police. 

The oil man attempted to get us back inside the bar to play a drinking game of sorts. He had lapped both of us in his consumption at some point and was noticeably off-balance by now. I had switched from tequila to watery light beer a while ago, but the weed was leaving me more crossfaded than I would have liked to be. 

“I’m gonna stay out here for some fresh air,” the artist said. I agreed, and the oil man went inside, defeated. 

I asked the artist why he would stay in Texas after all of these years. Didn’t he want to leave and see the world? Surely an artist values new experiences, people, sights, drugs, really anything that gets you outside of your comfort zone. 

“It’s not really a choice, I don’t think. I’m Texan. I’m from Texas. This is my home and as shitty as it is to be here, I’m here.” 

As I move through the country in search of some new feeling of community, this mentality continues to baffle me. What ties our identities so deeply to these physical spaces that we have no say in being a part of? You didn’t choose to be born in Texas – why stay? Why do we commit to the places that feel comfortable, when the whole world is open for us to try out? 

I suppose, conversely, why would someone choose to roam aimlessly, indefinitely in search of a feeling they can’t really identify? 

I asked him the most important question: “Where do you buy weed in Texas?” 

He laughed. “Oh, you legalized state people are so spoiled. Where are you heading next?”

I told him I’d be in Santa Fe in two days. “Here,” he said, and pulled a contact lens case from his bag. “It’s not a lot, but this will get you to New Mexico.”

I feigned reluctance before putting the case into my purse. “Thanks, man, that’s really nice of you.”

“Gotta look out for your people, right?” 

I wasn’t his friend or a member of his community, but I felt taken care of in a way that made me miss having “my people.” One free little nug and I was romanticizing a whole life in West Texas. 

Lesson Six: Quit While You’re Ahead

The oil man walked back outside. “You’re killin me, blue eyes. Get in here and get drunk with me.” The scale had already tipped from fun-bullshitting-at-the-bar to this man is actually getting erratic and I knew it was time to duck out, hopefully unnoticed.

“Okay man, I’ll be in in a minute.” 

The artist looked at me, “if you still have a tab open, just leave it open and go. Make him pay for your drinks before he knows you’re gone.” 

“I feel bad. I should go pay for mine, right?” 

He gave me a look that said oh honey, that’s cute. I appreciated his being on my side and indulging in a little “take what’s your” behavior. 

The problem wasn’t just that the oil man was getting more aggressive about getting me drunk; the problem was that when I walked away, anyone could see me get in the van where I was parked for the night. It was already past midnight and frankly, I just didn’t want to deal with finding a new place to sleep. I was even a little skeptical of the arist watching me enter my house, potentially seeing an easy target: drunk and high, alone, sleeping in a parking lot. 

I thanked the artist again and stood to leave. Looking inside, I could see the oil man taking shots with a new girl. She looked young, maybe early 20’s, and she was already stumbling around. She had some friends keeping an eye from a nearby table, but I felt a knot in my stomach. 

“Will you keep an eye on that in there?” I asked the artist. 

He looked in and laughed. “That’s harmless. They’re just having fun.” 

A veil fell from my eyes as I looked at the artist – his kind smile, his mellow attitude, his non-threatening demeanor. A safe guy, with a girlfriend. He’d had me fooled into thinking he was an ally or at least a man with empathy this whole time. He wasn’t any better than the masculine, increasingly aggressive oil man by being softer in contrast; at the end of the day, he was still a man. Boys will be boys. They’re just having fun. 

I ignored his advice and walked back inside with no game plan. The oil man tried to order me yet another shot, which I flat-out ignored at this point as I walked past him. I was over trying to carefully negotiate how nice was too nice to not get assaulted. I instead walked over to the table of the new girl’s friends to assess the situation. 

“Hey, sorry to bother you ladies, just wondering if your friend over there is okay?”

They were pretty sober and rude. “Um, yeah, we’re all fine. This guy is not going home with Jessie and Jessie is not going home with him so if he’s yours, you can just go get him.” I would have loved the backstory on the tension in this friend group. 

I felt that was sufficient information for feeling a clean handoff of responsibility for this girl’s well-being. “Fair enough! Have a great night!” and I didn’t miss a beat getting out the front door, avoiding having to see the artist again along the side of the building. I kept watching over my shoulder, speed walking across the street and into the parking lot. I looked back and saw the artist looking for me, confused that I hadn’t said goodbye. 

There are a lot of ways to stay safe as a woman alone in a van. You can stay sober and have a weapon on you and always plan to camp someplace safe. The most effective strategies are proactive, possibly paranoid, and are executed so calmly that no one even notices you’ve slipped out the back door. But whether you’re in the middle of the Texas wilderness or in some biker bar downtown, ultimately, you’re on your own. No amount of preparation is a substitute for trusting your gut. And there are always coyotes at the door. 

Out of an abundance of caution, I drove the van a few blocks down the road to another empty parking lot before finally falling asleep. But every time I heard someone walk past the van or saw the headlights of another car pull in, I jolted awake. I moved the knife from my side table to under my pillow, and searched on YouTube for “how to play knife finger game like an expert.”