Thank Goodness for Time Zones

Nashville, Tennessee

There once was a time when GPS was not on your phone. It was not on your Garmin. It resided in 2D format called a map or if you were smart, you printed directions from MapQuest before leaving on a week-long adventure across the United States. However, if you happened to miss a turn, there was no nice lady who “recalculated” your route and clearly told you to U-turn as possible.

So, while on (yet another) road trip, my cousin and I were headed through the Great Smokey Mountains from North Carolina to Tennessee. We had planned on having enough time to adventure a bit through the mountains, but had reservations to see a show at the Grand Ole Opry that night.

For those unfamiliar with that venue, it is known for being THE concert venue for Country music and if you are invited to perform there, you are on your way to stardom. We were very excited to experience such a historic landmark. So excited, that we got lost somewhere around Santa’sLand (yes, that is a real place). Luckily, my parents always insisted I carry a Rand McNally Road Atlas in my car (yes, I do still have one to this day) and got us back on track. However, we lost so much time “recalculating,” we were projected to miss the show!

Now, I did not speed as we were still in the mountains and I wasn’t such a confident driver then, but any comfort stops were kept to a minimum. As we crossed through Tennessee, my cousin noted that the clock on her cell phone had changed. Weird, we thought. We hadn’t crossed any new State lines. Turns out, there is a time zone change almost halfway through Tennessee and we just gained one whole hour!

Arriving at the hotel, we had all of about 15 minutes to check-in, change, and run over to the venue, but we made it before they closed the doors on us!

For the life of me, I cannot recall who we actually saw perform, but I did learn a valuable lesson that day – Time Zones are important to calculate in your travel plans. Thankfully, we were gaining time heading West, but it would have been much worse if we were headed East instead!

Bar Stool Talk: Have you ever relied on old-fashioned maps or printed directions for a road trip and faced unexpected challenges along the way? Share your story, including any memorable experiences and valuable lessons learned about navigating without modern GPS. How did you handle any surprises, and did your trip turn out differently than expected?