I did a stupid thing today.
I was driving down with my son to pick up my wife at the airport. It’s an easy drive — 35 minutes, especially on a low-traffic day like a Sunday. There was no one on the road when we left home. We left two hours early so I could run a few errands beforehand. I was already thinking about activities to fill all the extra time we might have.
The drive was going fine — until it wasn’t. About two miles before the highway exited the canyon out into Salt Lake City, we hit a standstill. What we didn’t know was that an 18-wheeler had crashed, and the road was completely closed. It would take officials nearly eight hours to re-open the road.
I almost always check Google Maps before we leave, just to make sure there’s no traffic to be aware of. Had I done that today, it would’ve re-routed me to an alternate road. That trip to Salt Lake would’ve taken an extra 15 minutes.
I didn’t, though.
Instead, we got stuck in traffic for over an hour. Luckily, after a whole lot of waiting, police were able to route smaller vehicles like mine over a bridge and to an alternate route. We did make it to the airport for pick-up — it just took two hours for what should’ve been a 35-minute trip. Even more luckily: My son napped through most of the traffic.
Still, it was a reminder: No matter matter how many times you’ve done something before, you still should go through your routine. A five-second check of Google Maps would’ve saved me 90 minutes.
Next time, even if it’s the 1,000th time I’ve done something, I’ll still make sure to check.
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That’s the photo I took while stopped in the canyon on I-80 today. We saw a out of red lights for a very long time. I’m grateful we didn’t have to sit there for 8 hours — I’m not sure what we would’ve done!