Legging it through Nevada

Our next major stop would be Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately getting there would require a couple of days of driving and today saw the first stretch of that. From Topaz Lake we had most of the length of Nevada to cover in order to get to Twin Falls, Idaho. This stretch of driving started off as being quite interesting with the scenery resembling something you might find in the Klein Karoo but after enough time became skull-numbingly monotonous.

Not long after we crossed the state line with Idaho, the scenery changed to a flatter but more agriculturally vegetated variety and a pleasant surprise was when we thought we had an hour more of driving ahead of us, only to realise that we had crossed into the Mountain Time Zone and had in fact, completed the day's driving.

Really, there is only one thing I find more idiotic than time zones, and that is Daylight Saving Time. On this road trip, we'll be passing through 6 states: California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, back through Nevada and finally back to California.

California is 10 hours ahead of South Africa, and by "ahead", of course I mean "behind". But then again, it's not really 10 hours but rather 9 hours because Daylight Saving Time is in effect. Nevada uses, for the most part, the same clock as California. Notice that I say "for the most part" because this is not true for the city of West Wendover, which is an hour behind the rest of the state, and by "behind", of course I mean "ahead".

Idaho is an hour behind Nevada and California, and by now you know what I mean by "behind", but only if you're south of Salmon River. Montana is in the same time zone as that part of Idaho that matters, as are Wyoming and Utah.

Arizona is also in this same time zone, only it isn't. Seeing as Arizona does not employ Daylight Saving Time, it now falls in the same time zone as California and Nevada (well most of it anyway). Of course, the Navajo region of Arizona does employ Daylight Saving Time and therefore does fall in the same time zone as Utah, Wyoming, Montana and the part of Idaho that matters.

If by now you're not thoroughly confused, you're just not paying attention.

Tomorrow we'll be making the trip from Twin Falls, Idaho to West Yellowstone, Montana. The stretch is somewhat shorter than today's and will not be crossing any time zone boundaries which means that tomorrow's blog posting promises to be less vitriolic.