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January 28, 2006
Celebrating Big 11!
Last weekend, Meg celebrated her 11th birthday with camping trip over to the new property. She invited a couple of her friends as we set out late Saturday afternoon.
Deb had gone ahead to bring children, the cookout supplies, sleeping bags, and supplies for the scavenger hunt. I took Meg and her friends for some last minute cookout items, and we met out at the property.
While Deb and Scott were finalizing the scavenger hunt preparations, we assembled the tent on one of the level spots on the sloping two acres.
While heading from one clue to the next on their scavenger hunt adventure, Meg and her friends managed to brave the fierce patches of cedar trees, and other obstacles to discover the "gum tree" (a tree filled with chewing gum), and other assorted goodies.
Now it was time for the cookout. Once the charcoal was ready, it was time for those 'dogs and burgers. For as as much as we brought to handle the camping and cooking, that burger flipper sure would have been a nice addtion. As is always the case, we figured something out.
As sprinkles began to fall on us, the kids made s'mores over the barbeque bit, while Deb and I loaded up the stuff she would take back. Meg and her friends stayed in the tent, and I with a pile of blankets stayed in the Highlander. For those that have tried to sleep when traveling business class to Asia, on seats that don't quite get to horizontal, the experience and comfort is quite similar... as in not so great!
Throughout the night the rains picked up and I could here the girls well into the wee hours. By morning we all managed to get a few hours sleep, and we gathered ourselves to return to civilization.
It was a great way to break in the new property and I know Meg and her friends had a blast.
Posted by Jim at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
January 7, 2006
Wow!
Wow, what a game to win the national championship! What more can be said beyond what's already been written.
And Deb and I, getting to join Pat and Donna to witness the greatest game I've seen and perhaps may ever see, given the stakes of a National Championship, and yet another unbelievable comeback we've come to know and love in the Vince Young era of Longhorn football. The nation was about to learn more about this team led by Vince in a few hours.
The day began early in Las Vegas where we and thousands of other Longhorn faithful flew in, to make the trek across the Mojave desert to get to Pasadena. A beautiful burnt orange sunrise over the mountains greeted us as we began our early drive down I15. A good omen... The drive was filled with other Longhorns flashing the hook 'em and sporting flags. It was much like the drive up I35 to Dallas for the Red River shootout with Oklahoma.
We arrived in the Pasadena area in time to drop our bags at the hotel and head toward the Rose Bowl to try to get into the ESPN National Championship tailgate party, along with 10,000 of our other closest friends. We successfully navigated the most-difficult parking and shuttle to get the tailgate just after noon. We met up with Tommy, Julie, Fred, Lorrie, Chris, and Lisa. The atmosphere was already pretty charged already for being 5 hours before kickoff. After many days of heavy showers in the LA area, the blue sky, 70 degree, breezy California weather came returned. A perfect day for tailgating and watching football!
We had a great time visiting and seeing the supremely confident Trojan faithful, which I'd supposed we'd be if we were riding a 34 game winning streak. But hey, 19 straight victories wasn't too shabby, either.
When our fellow Austin Longhorn friends left for the Longhorn tailgate party, where Pat and Donna were, Deb and I stayed (since we were late getting tickets for the sold out event) and met some interesting folks.
One young guy had an amazing burnt orange polyester jacket, which was worn by a former UT Regent and member of LBJ's cabinet. He got it at a thrift store for $8. Another guy had an Earl Campbell jersey, signed by Earl and inscribed with the words, "Peace and Love." Deb and I were somewhat jealous that we did not get Earl to sign a jersey while we ran the Texas Exes in New Orleans and Earl came visiting us.
We enjoyed the band, the weather, and the expensive food and drink, and the kickoff approached. Just before they closed down the tailgate party, we jumped at the end of the line to get our photo with the National Championship trophy. The lines had been outrageously long, but not at the end, as Deb and I were the last ones to have our pictures taken with it, before it would join Mack Brown and the boys in a few hours.
The Rose Bowl is located in an amazing setting, with the San Gabriel mountains serving as a backdrop to the stadium. We were treated to a burnt orange sunset over the mountains, much like we had seen in the sunrise earlier in the day in Las Vegas. A good omen times two!
The game itself was one for the ages. More than a fifth of the nation's televisions were tuned into the game, and an incredible 70+ percent in the Austin area. I won't try to recap the whole game, but it was filled with unbelievable highs and lows. Since the stakes were higher than I've ever witnessed in person in a game before, the emotions were magnified even more.
The crowd was as loud as any Red River shootout game against the despised Oklahoma Sooners. If fact, from looking around, it seemed the Rose Bowl was filled with more burnt orange than cardinal and gold, which is amazing, given the game being held just a few miles from the USC campus. The Longhorn faithful do know how to travel.
The crowd also seemed to be in control of the officiating crew, demanding plays to be reviewed. When the Longhorns intercepted a pass which the officials ruled out of bounds, the Longhorn faithful screamed as the jumbotron right behind where we were sitting, showed the error of their ways. The game was filled with these reviews, and lack of reviews which added to the drama.
The game instantly started with both highs and lows. The Horns held the Trojans to an immediate punt on their first posession. Huge high with the screaming crowd. Followed by a huge low when we immediately fumbled the punt, and USC quickly moved in for a touchdown. A fumbled punt cost us the national championship in my years at UT back in the 1983 season. This had been my big fear, that we'd have some early turnovers and then the game could get ugly, quickly, much like it did last year for the Sooners against USC in the championship game.
Our defense got a couple a huge turnovers back to keep USC from steamrolling. We took a 16-10 lead into the half which was a huge high, thinking that we could be National Champions if we kept playing this way. We had a chance to catch our breath and rest our bodies and vocal chords after 4 hours of tailgating and 2 hours of football.
The second half was a showcase for offense-minded football, and we could see just how difficult it is to stop a team with two Heisman trophy winners, something no other college football team has ever faced before. I kept screaming for the Longhorn defense to make a play. It seemed they never could, and USC basically scored every time they touched the ball, until they built a 12 point lead with just over six minutes to play. We knew we could score more points, because our legend for the ages, quarterback Vince Young, had always seemed to lead the team to score when the game was on the line. But if our defense couldn't stop them, it wouldn't matter. At this point we were back on the emotional low side of the rollercoaster that was this game.
For the rest of the country that doesn't follow Texas football, Vince has made a habit of the dramatic. Some examples are coming back from 28 points down to beat Oklahoma State the season before this current one, followed by a dramatic Rose Bowl last year, where he led Texas to a victory over Michigan in the final seconds. This season was no exception with a dramatic late touchdown pass to beat Ohio State in Columbus, and yet another comeback win over Oklahoma State when being down 28-9 in the second quarter. Vince did his part yet again leading the Longhorns down the field for a quick touchdown to cut the lead to five.
Finally the Longhorn defense heard my pleas, and made a play, stuffing USC on a fourth and two yards, to give the offense the ball back with under two minutes to play and 56 yards to go. It got dicey when it was fourth down and eight yard to go for a touchdown, with under 30 seconds in the game. Vince put on the superman cape yet again, and showed the entire nation what we already knew here in Texas, that he is the best player in college football, and is one of the greatest to ever play the game.
It was absolute madness when he went into that end zone for a touchdown. All of us went nuts high fiving every person within possible reach, even attempting it with those out of reach. Now some 16 hours after the day began early in Las Vegas, some ten hours after the tailgate party began, and now five hours of an unbelievable game filled with incredible highs and lows, we were within 19 seconds of being the national champions.
Of course, USC would not take it easy on us, and immediately busted a big play to get on the Longhorn side of the field with a chance for one or two last gasp efforts to tie the game with a field goal, or win it with a "Hail Mary" touchdown pass. When USC's Matt Leinert's pass fell incomplete and the clock read 0:00, the place absolutely erupted. National Champions, perfect season.
It had been 35 long years since UT last one a national championship in football. The collective pent up demand in stadium among those of us clad in burnt orange finally burst out. What a game, what a celebration, what another unbelievable, amazing performance to witness in person.
We stayed for what seemed like another hour celebrating with the team and having the realization soak in that we had done it, and won the national championship.
I'll be hard pressed to ever see another game like this again.
Thank you Mom and Dad for watching the kids, and Pat and Donna for joining y'all for this most amazing and memorable event.
Hook 'em!
UPDATE:
Thanks Fred for this awesome video which shows the Texas fans going wild as Vince scores the winning touchdown!
Posted by Jim at 2:52 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack