Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Stupid Rail Road Companies anyway!

All the experiences with time zones in my existence have been either so-so or bordering on the negative. Such as: trying to facilitate phone calls to family members without waking them up in the mornings. Or vise-versa, them waking me up at night. All in all, not that big of a deal since I like talking to family and we all agree sleep is highly over rated. Most recently we experienced one of the negative aspects of time zones.

Dave and I had a little jaunt up to Louisville, Kentucky a few weeks ago. (Yes, we saw the big bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum while driving around. It's hard to miss since it accents the skyline.) Even though Louisville is only a 3 1/2 hour drive away, we had planned on staying a few nights and seeing what the city had to offer. Due to school madness and timing we were limited to one evening. Before returning home from Afghanistan Dave purchased tickets to Wicked in Louisville.

By process of elimination, we choose to go the night of the show and leave our packed overnight bags to gather dust on the living room floor. Arriving 4+ hours before the show we killed time in a local book store and at dinner. I've just got to say that I judge restaurants by the quality of the raspberry lemonade. Hard Rock Cafe is one of the few that still puts real raspberries in theirs. They are now on the good list, even though they're way mainstream, which usually takes people off the list. Melting Pot, on the other hand- I have no words for serving me hard lemonade. My lawyer might though. But that's for another post.

So, back to Louisville. We would have loved to continue killing all our oodles of time down at the river and enjoy more of the city. As fate would have it, the weather was bitter butt-cold, and the wind howling like a banshee, so we opted to go the venue about an hour early and see what they had to offer by way of visual art. Bah, as if we saw any. The show had started 7 min. before we got there. While trying to wrap our minds around this concept it dawned on us that we must be in a different time zone.

DUDE! I mean really! Shouldn't there be like some loud voice that announces when you've entered a new time zone. Or, at the very least, a sign on the freeway. Every city and county we passed through had a sign letting us know we were in their territory. We were in one county for less than 2 miles. And how do I know this? Because there were signs. I even commented to Dave on the matter when he was wonderfully reading Treasure Island. Our city alone has 10+ signs letting everyone know that it's the home of Miss USA 2007, who fell on her face at the Miss Universe pageant. OK, so it doesn't say all that. I can't help but think of it when I see them though. So signs, they're handy, they're informative, they're helpful, they're necessary. Come on people, work with us here!

And another thing: why are there two times zones in one state. They should all take after Alaska and become one time zone. It took like four years for Alaska to get there once they started (it's just that big). But they did it. And if Alaska can do it, you can too.

On a completely different tangent, Wicked was pretty good. The Defying Gravity song, spectacular.

5 comments:

Spitfire said...

Oh my gosh, I would have been so mad!! The even sadder part is that when I read this I kept thinking in the back of my mind how strangely appropriate this seemed, because this would only happen to you and Dave. At least they let you in part way through. Maybe I'll start praying that you guys will have better luck.

Unknown said...

The only thing worse is Daylight Savings Time. I mean, excuse me, we are't all farmers anymore!

Anonymous said...

Actually...St. Lawrence Island is in the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone. But I get your point.

deerhollow said...

a poor lot in life...But happy you saw most of the show! love reading your blog, even though we don't always comment
*hugs*

Valli said...

Thanks for all the well wishing. Yes, we are grateful we still got to see most of the show. Even though we are slightly retarded.
After relaying this event to a friend who moved here from Virginia, she informed me it took her and her husband a week before they considered the possibility of a time change. We love you Jennifer! Thinking of that always makes me smile.