Gone with the wind
You know that famous opening song from the musical “Oklahoma”?
“Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain!” I couldn’t help but sing those lyrics to myself even though we were deep in the heart of Texas.
We had traveled to Austin along with thousands of the Mountaineer faithful to watch WVU face the University of Texas Longhorns football team. I had always wanted to go to a game at Texas and it was a great excuse to visit and explore the wonderful city of Austin for the first time.
The fans were friendly (even though we pulled off a breathtaking last-minute victory), the food was awesome and the weather was warm and sunny. Each day, the temperature reached the lower to mid-80s even though it was the first weekend of November. Chamber of Commerce weather, indeed, as they say. It was a bit windy but we welcomed the breeze as we walked the streets of Austin taking in live music and sumptuous brisket tacos on fresh corn tortillas.
I wore my WVU baseball cap to shield my face from the sun the first day. All of a sudden, a double-decker tour bus whisked by and whoosh! Off went my cap! I thought it literally got thrown under the bus, but luckily landed only a few feet behind me. We got a good chuckle out of it and went on our merry way.
On game day, it was sunny and very windy. We knew our seats were in the upper level in the visiting team section, so up we climbed. We reached the final steps in the upper section and I joked that it would be funny if we were in the very top row. We were!
It was actually kind of fun since I’d never sat in the top row of a stadium that holds 100,000 people. At the surface (field level), the winds were about 5-10 miles per hour and you could see a few passes flutter with an occasional gust. Aloft, where we sat probably more than 100 feet above ground, winds were a steady 15-20 miles per hour with higher gusts. The wind was blowing right into our faces, which got a bit old after the first quarter. One friend joked he’d be sunburned and windburned the next day.
I was holding onto my hat with one hand the whole time and then whoosh! My boyfriend’s WVU hat blew right off his head and took off into the wild blue yonder. We started laughing, turned around and watched it flutter to the ground below where a fan at the gate picked it up and waved it toward us. I think he turned it in to the ushers, but we forgot to ask about it afterward in the elation of WVU’s big win. Our team was 1-0 against Texas and our hats went 1-1 against the Texas wind.
Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.