(Warning! What follows is essentially a travelogue and may be considered boring and otherwise uninteresting to normal people.)

I was in Austin, Texas, last weekend. The motivating reason for being there was a football game. The Cougars and Longhorns played. Part of the interesting background of the game is that the coach of Texas used to throw for BYU and was a teammate of Coach Sitake of BYU.

Also, prior to Saturday’s game, the series history of the two schools was 4 – 1 in BYU’s favor. The last meeting was in 2014 when the Cougars won 41 – 7 in Austin with Taysom Hill playing quarterback. We didn’t have a Taysom Hill this year.

How did the game turn out? If you’ve seen the old movie “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” you’ll understand my response speaking in behalf of BYU. My response, “The game? It was just a flesh wound.”

If that reference doesn’t mean anything to you, perhaps a variation of the tasteless, yet funny (to some of us), joke question that I used in last week’s column would help. Here’s the variation, “Other than that Merrill, how was your visit to Austin?” (Original: “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”)

To spell it right out, BYU lost to Texas by the very same score that the Utes lost to the Oregon Ducks. (35 – 6) Misery loves company.

The game in Austin was miserable. It was hot. It was humid. Our players made mistakes. We were surrounded by Longhorn fans. Tall people were often standing up in front of us blocking some of our view of the game. And to top it all off — it was FUN!

We were staring into the sun half of the game. One of the biggest cheers of the game was when a cloud obscured the sun. Our Texas “seat neighbors” told us, “Oh yeah, we cheer the clouds at these games.”

Really and truly, we were treated very well by the Longhorn fans. Nobody treated us badly or said anything naughty to us. Even the two Texas guys who got in a “knock down, drag out” fight and literally rolled down the bleachers to us from three or four rows above us seemed to be fine with us.

It took several people to physically separate them and “unlock the headlock” that had them connected in combat. My wife said that we went to a fight and a football game broke out.

She retrieved the “Christian cross” portion of the one guy’s necklace and returned it to him before the cops arrived on the scene. I didn’t have time to give them a “Golden Rule” sermon before the cops had their own sermon to give them.

Evidently, they were fighting over a seat on the bleachers. And this was in the third quarter. Neither one of them seemed large enough to take up more than one of the designated seats; so I really didn’t quite get what the problem was.

Otherwise, our trip to Austin wasn’t too much out of the ordinary. It wasn’t too weird. That may disappoint some people from Austin.

“Keep Austin Weird” is the official slogan of the Austin Independent Business Alliance. They take pride in their “strangeness” and being unique. Portland, Oregon, uses the same slogan, but my research shows that Austin started first.

Someone in Sanpete attempted to start up a “Keep Sanpete Weird” thing some years ago. You can still see the occasional bumper sticker around.

And for the life of me, I can’t remember right now who told me that they started it and produced the stickers. When I mentioned it in this space previously in some circumstance, they let me know how it got started. Perhaps they’ll remind me again.

There is a “Museum of the Weird” in Austin. We drove there and “cased the joint.” We didn’t have much time and figured that paying what we paid for our football tickets was much weirder than paying the weird price of $13 per ticket to enter the weird museum for a short time. We’ll save it for next time.

We did spend time at some interesting places including, the LBJ Presidential Library/Museum, the Texas State Capitol, the Texas State Cemetery and, of course, barbecue places.

A memorable quote of President Lyndon Johnson: “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read ‘President Can’t Swim.'”

A fun fact about the Texas capitol building: The dome is 302 feet tall and is second highest in the United States. The U.S. Capitol is taller. When it was completed in Austin, it was said to be the seventh largest building in the world.

At the Texas State Cemetery, there are many impressive graves, including that of Stephen F. Austin, the “Father of Texas.” Chris Kyle, the “American Sniper” is buried there.

And, of course, the cemetery has a stone memorializing William (Bill) Pickett. Who was Bill Pickett? – you might ask.

Bill Pickett, a black cowboy and showman, was the inventor of steer wrestling (bull dogging). He’s in the PRCA Hall of Fame. At age 61 he was kicked in the head by a horse and died in 1932.

One of his quotes: “If you were able to believe in Santa Claus for like 8 years, you can believe in yourself for like 5 minutes”

Finally, I think that it’s a good thing I don’t live in Texas. I’d be out every night eating barbecue. I don’t think my wallet or heart would last long. Stay weird Sanpete! — Merrill

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