Well, heck, with all these great recco's it may be worth a "road trip" just to go check it all out..work or not.
Who knows, maybe we need to plan a "Middle of Nowhere" Do there

What's amazed me from all the people I've talked to and posts I've read, is the consensus that everyone thinks it's in the middle of freaking no-where, yet people really, really like the area. I'm hearing from a lot of people who hated while there, but love it in retrospect, or people who lived there thinking they were in a hole in the wall, then in hindsight realize how good they had it.
Sure, you could drive ten minutes outside the city & be in the middle of a very, very quiet cornfield....but the restaurants, shops, nightlife, etc. all weren't that bad at all.