Backpacking through Europe in 1994
Day 89 • December 4, 1994
Rota, Spain
The days in Rota were starting to feel less like the end of a trip and more like a temporary life I had slipped into. Jeff had things to do on base, so we drove over together. It was strange seeing everything in daylight after only being there at night — the barracks, the gates, the quiet order of it all. Afterward we ran a few errands in town, grabbed some Pizza Hut, and headed back to the apartment like it was any other Saturday.
The afternoon and evening unfolded slowly. We watched movies, flipped through old VHS tapes their parents had sent from home, and laughed at sitcoms that felt both familiar and slightly out of place this far from Nebraska. Later, Jeff and I went down to the beach so I could take some pictures of the sunset. The light was soft and warm, and for a little while I just stood there with my camera, not really thinking about anything except how good it felt to be still.
That night the three of us sat around talking after the movies ended. At some point the conversation turned to the pictures I had taken on the trip and, eventually, to everything that had led me here in the first place. It wasn’t dramatic or heavy in the way I once would have expected. It just felt honest. Jeff and Vicky didn’t try to fix anything. They just listened.
When I mentioned I was planning to leave the next morning, they both asked me to stay one more day. I didn’t need much convincing. Later, after they had gone to bed, I stayed up and watched the 1993 Orange Bowl on a tape Jeff’s parents had sent. Even though I already knew how it ended, I still found myself getting worked up when Nebraska missed the last-second field goal. Sitting there on their couch in Spain, thousands of miles from home, it was oddly comforting to feel that old, familiar disappointment again.
No Photographs from today
DAY 89 / 12-4-94
Rota, Spain
Jeff & I left shortly after noon today to run some errands. First, he needed some things from base so I got to see it in daylight & his barracks. Next we drove on to Puerto de Santa Maria to check on train times. Next we went to Pizza Hut to pick up lunch. It was not nearly as good as the one in Denmark, but better than Italian Pizza. Still none of it compares to the ones at home.
When we got back to their place we ate & watched “Undercover Blues”. I went to go take some sunset pictures at the beach.
Back at home, the 3 of us watched some sitcoms. They don’t get anything on their TV, but both sets of parents send tapes from home. So we watched old Home Improvement, Murphy Brown, Coach, etc. After that we watched the movie “8 Seconds”.
Then we looked at my pictures & talked about my suicide.
I was going to leave tomorrow morning, but they both wanted me to stay 1 more day.
Since I didn’t have to get up early I watched another tape: Last year’s Orange Bowl*. Man, that sure was an exciting game. Even though I knew the outcome it was still fun to watch, & then I was still pissed we lost.
Then I turned on the radio & it was the [Kansas City] Chiefs / [Denver] Broncos [NFL football] game, live! It went into overtime, but I fell asleep before it was over.
Only 2 more weeks & I’ll watch it live!
8 Seconds is a 1994 American contemporary Western biographical drama film directed by John G. Avildsen. Its title refers to the length of time a bull rider is required to stay on for a ride to be scored. The film stars Luke Perry as American rodeo legend Lane Frost and focuses on his life and career as a bull riding champion. It also features Stephen Baldwin as Tuff Hedeman, and Red Mitchell as Cody Lambert.
The film was completed and premiered shortly after what would have been Frost's 30th birthday, in late 1993.
*Note from Todd in 2024:
In the annals of American college football, the University of Nebraska has a storied history.
To begin with, the state of Nebraska has no professional sports teams and only one NCAA Division I college team - the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
And nearly all Nebraskans LOVE their Huskers!
The university’s football stadium, Memorial Stadium, located in the heart of Lincoln, the state capital, currently seats 90,000 people and holds the NCAA record for consecutive sellouts dating back to 1962. At the end of the 2024 season, that record stood at 403 consecutive games!
I grew up watching Cornhusker games on TV or listening to them on the radio, and about every other year I went to Memorial Stadium with either my Uncle Rob or my Dad before I was old enough to make the two-hour drive to Lincoln myself and went to games with my friends.
The Huskers were National Champions in 1970 and 1971 - the year I was born - and had a solid reputation as a national powerhouse team, but they had not been National Champions since.
The Orange Bowl, played in Miami, Florida, is one of the most prestigious post-season Bowl games in America, so, win or lose, just getting the chance to play in it is a remarkable accomplishment.
In the 1993 season, Nebraska went 11-0 and played in the Orange Bowl on January 1, 1994 against Florida State. Florida State defeated Nebraska 18-16. The game determined the 1993 season's National Champion, and Florida State won its first national title. Nebraska had a chance to win with a last-second 45-yard field goal attempt, but it missed wide left. I watched this game with the Dome Crew in our house, and we were all crushed when the kick failed.
This is the game Jeff’s parents had recorded on a VHS tape and sent to him, and that I watched in his apartment. In the pre-internet days before YouTube provided the ability to watch anything on demand, this VHS video tape was priceless!
Then, in the fall of 1994, while I was backpacking through Europe, the Nebraska Cornhuskers continued dominating everyone, finishing the regular season undefeated at 12-0! They then went on to defeat the Miami Hurricanes 24-17 on January 1, 1995, in the Orange Bowl to finish 13-0, winning their first National Championship under coach Tom Osborne.
The Dome Crew watched this game at Collin’s new mobile home trailer in East Lawn. (Collin was the founding member of The Dome - he found the house for rent, and while everyone else was with Doug on a Spring Break ROTC-sponsored ski trip to Colorado, signed the lease. Now he was the first one of us to buy his own place!)
When this Orange Bowl ended, around 10:00 pm, I jumped in the car with my Dome Brothers and we road-tripped to Lincoln to join in the massive street party that was happening! However, two hours later, when we arrived after midnight, the street party was over - it was January 2nd in Nebraska and the temperatures were freezing! We made our own party though, eating gyros at a 24-hour restaurant and paying homage at Memorial Stadium before driving the two hours back to Kearney, getting home around 5:00 am.
In 1995, Nebraska won another National Championship! After going 12-0 in the regular season, they defeated the Florida Gators 62-24 in the Fiesta Bowl on January 2, 1996.
In the 1996 season, the Huskers went 11-2, beating Virginia Tech 42-21 in the Orange Bowl.
And in the 1997 season, Nebraska again had a perfect 13-0 record, which was capped off on Friday, January 2, 1998. In Tom Osborne’s final game as head coach, the team again played in the Orange Bowl for a share of the National Championship, in the days before the College Football Championship.
This time the Huskers defeated the Tennessee Volunteers, who had Peyton Manning for their quarterback, 42-17, winning their third National Championship in four years!
And I was there!
Not only to witness it, but to record it, as a sideline photographer for my hometown newspaper, The Kearney Hub, where I was working then!
Never in my wildest dreams on December 4, 1994, sitting on Jeff’s couch in Rota, Spain, re-watching the Cornhuskers lose the 1993 Orange Bowl, would I imagine that three years and one month later, January 5, 1998, I would be taking pictures on the sidelines of the 1998 Orange Bowl! And Nebraska won that game, and a share of the National Championship!
Looking Back
Sitting on Jeff’s couch in Rota that night, watching the 1993 Orange Bowl on a VHS tape his parents had mailed to Spain, I had no idea how much that game would stay with me. Nebraska lost on a missed field goal in the final seconds, and even though I already knew the outcome, I still felt that old, familiar sting. It was one of those strange moments where home felt both very far away and suddenly very close.
What I couldn’t have known then was that just over three years later, I would be standing on the sideline of another Orange Bowl — this time as a photographer, not a fan watching from thousands of miles away. Nebraska won that night in 1998, and I was there with a camera in my hands, documenting it from the field while Tim and Kyle watched from the stands. Two of the same guys I used to watch games with back in Kearney were now in the crowd while I was living out something I never would have dared to dream about on that couch in Spain.
That contrast still hits me. In 1994 I was a lost kid at the end of a long, difficult trip, unsure of what the future held. By 1998 I was on the field at the Orange Bowl, doing the thing I loved most, surrounded by the same friends who had been part of my life long before any of this started. The journey from that night in Rota to standing on the sideline in Miami wasn’t a straight line, but it was real. And it started with me deciding to keep going when everything in me wanted to stop.
Looking at those 1998 photos now — me on the field, Tim and Kyle in the stands, the team celebrating a national championship — I’m reminded that none of it was guaranteed. The fact that I got to experience both sides of that story, the watching and the living, feels like one of the quiet miracles of my life.