One of the state’s most dramatic drives, the winding ribbon of two-lane blacktop in far West Texas known as FM 170 (or the River Road, as locals call it), follows the course of the Rio Grande as it meanders along the Texas-Mexico border. The mountains and canyons that form this rugged terrain provide miles of stunning vistas. But just below a dusty turnout on the river side of the route between Lajitas and Presidio (about 13 miles northwest of the former and 36 miles southeast of the latter) sits an unassuming roadside attraction: a boulder with “DOM” chiseled into it. Fans of Fandango, the 1985 cult-classic film about a group of five University of Texas grads on a road trip, will recognize the rock as the site where one of the friends, played by a young, pre-pre-pre-Yellowstone Kevin Costner, digs up a buried bottle of Dom Pérignon. “Here’s to us and what we were,” he shouts into the beautiful abyss. “And what we’ll be!” The champagne might be long gone, but that sense of infinite possibility remains.
An abbreviated version of this article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “A Real Rock Star.” Subscribe today.
