Beaver Dam is in the northwest corner of Arizona. If you go eight miles west you cross into
Nevada, which is in the Pacific Time Zone.
If you go twenty-three miles east, you cross into Utah, which is in the
Mountain Time Zone.
And Arizona? It’s in
the Mountain Standard Time Zone.
Always. Arizona is one of two
states in the U.S. that does not observe Daylight Savings Time. Half the year, Arizona is on the same time as
Utah. The other half, it’s on the same
time as Nevada.
This can make life interesting. Since there’s almost nothing in Beaver Dam,
if we want to do anything, we’re either driving to Utah or driving to
Nevada. And what time it is where we’re
going is almost more important than what time it is where we are. If we were going to Utah, we plan to leave
normally. If we were going to Nevada,
we’d leave 45 minutes later than the time we were scheduled to arrive. Weird, I know, but we got used to it.
Just as we had pretty much figured out our regular routine,
Daylight Savings Time hit. Utah and
Nevada dutifully changed. Arizona
dutifully stayed the same. And now,
instead of being on the same time as Utah and an hour ahead of Nevada, we were
on the same time as Nevada and an hour behind Utah.
This hit us pretty hard last weekend when we commuted to
Hurricane for the Tri-State ATV Jamboree.
We had to be at the Jamboree Headquarters each morning at 6:30 AM –
challenging even when you don’t have to adjust for time zones. We had to leave the trailer at 4:30 AM to
make it on time.
Then there’s the TV schedule. Our trailer antenna picks up one station
from Phoenix. Everything else is from
Utah. So the Channel 4 news at 5 is on
at 4 here. And clocks? The trailer clocks are set to Arizona time,
which is effectively Pacific Time. The
car clocks are set to Utah time. My
watch is set to Utah time. Thankfully the
cell phones change with the location, so if I ever get confused, I have an
authoritative source. Verizon really
knows what time it is, and apparently, they really care.
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