Hook 'Em Horns!

Hook ‘Em Horns!

As you probably already know, I live in Austin, Texas - home of the Texas Longhorns.  I attended the University of Texas here in Austin and have been a big fan of UT and their various teams for as long as I can remember.  Tonight the football team will play Alabama for the BCS National Championship.  I hope it is an exciting game, but mostly I just hope we win.  I mean, who wants to lose, right?

Recently I went on a photowalk with my friend Pete Talke, who runs the popular travel photo blog www.places2explore.wordpress.com.  We spent the entire time around the campus of UT, exploring various nooks and crannies like photographers like to do.  Eventually, we decided to head over to DKR Texas Memorial Stadium to see if we could get in and get some shots.  I mean, who doesn’t want to get in there and get some shots, right?  Well, it is a long story, and it involves elevators and stairwells, doors that lock behind you, hats left in the right places to keep those doors from locking, hiding in dark corners, some chain link fences and a bit of luck, but - we got in!  Ingenuity and persistence pay off!

We came out just under the upper deck area, if you know the stadium, and had the place to ourselves.  So, like anyone expecting the party to end at any minute, we went crazy taking shot after shot.  Pete ran one way and I ran another, because I think we both figured our time was limited.  We shot from midfield, we shot from just under the jumbotron, and we finally ended up in the north end zone, getting a glory shot of each other with our cameras and tripods in hand.  Here's the one of me:

And here is me setting up for that 50 yard line shot above:

That was about the time I heard “Gentlemen, do you have permits?”  Not exactly what I wanted to hear.  I mean, I was having a good time here, why do the police need to come spoil it?  Where’s the love?  I spent a lot of money going to school here, can’t I get just a few pictures?  Besides, this field is turf, so I couldn’t hurt it if I tried. 

But as I have learned, tripods with cameras on them make people nervous.  We surrendered our drivers licenses to this fine gentleman upon request, all the while making the appropriate “we love UT” references, plus some general ass kissing and truth-stretching.  When it came back clear (whew!  guess they had forgotten about some of my college antics) he was kind enough to escort us out of the stadium.  

So, Pete’s hat may still be propping open a door near the 6th floor of the stadium somewhere - but at least it was a UT Longhorns hat!

Good luck Longhorns, let’s win this game! 

Here are some other shots I got before we were noticed...

Hope you like the shots, but mostly I hope the Horns win!!  Good luck tonight Longhorns!