I was born and raised here. Love the Nature that is here; the people, not so much. We did have our one brief, shining moment when we elected Doug Jones to the Senate, but that was corrected at the first opportunity. And of course we boast the lowest property taxes in the country -- and schools are paid out of property taxes. Evidently, AL voters believe keeping as much of your money as possible is way more important than educating your kids, or anyone else's. I was fortunate to grow up in the H'ville area, easily the most civilized part of the state, with the best schools and cultural amenities, thanks mostly to the US Army and our post-war influx of what were, in essence, German war vets. (The irony ...).
(For those that don't know, AL has more biological diversity than any other US state. The Northern Plateau region (shared w/TN), for example, has more species of salamanders than any place on Earth, IIRC. AL also has fossils from the Pre-Cambrian to the very Recent and is supposedly the most fossiliferous state -- most people aren't aware of this because only a few dinosaur remains have been found here (but we have our share of mosasaurs). The first fossil whale ever found -- the inappropriately named Basilosaurus (aka Zeuglodon), is our official state fossil (more irony, given common AL beliefs about evolution) . The limestone/marl streambed gravel in our area is just full of bits of Paleozoic marine invertebrate remains. Pretty exciting being a kid to just go pick up fossils from any ditch or building lot you can find.)
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