Stop refreshing. Just go.

 I know this is a tortured metaphor. Moms who had their kids in the age of the internet can probably relate.

In the early stages of my pregnancies, especially with Zeke, the various baby-growing sites took up a lot of room in my history tab. Babycenter.com was a big one. Thebump.com was another. I know there were more.

There was all kinds of information available. You could put in your stats and it would show you how your fetus was developing. “It’s now the size of a plum and its skeleton is starting to harden…” Comparing the size to fruit was a big one. Mangos. Grapefruits. That sort of thing.

Early on, especially for the first baby, you worry about whether things are proceeding normally. Are there genetic abnormalities that I need to worry about? Should I get an amnio? If I do, could I hurt the baby? Will everything be ok?

And with so much information, you search online and you search online and you search online for answers. This site says I should do X, but the other says I should do Y. This site says the likelihood of any issues are minimal. The other doesn’t use the word “minimal” - it says “reduced.” Is that bad? Which should I believe?

What is hard to get out of your head is that it doesn’t matter what the various websites say. None of them will change what is going on in your belly.

But you still cling to the notion that if you find the right article on the right site that tells you what you want to hear, then everything will turn out the way you want.

This is what occurred to me yesterday when we were trying to figure out when to head back to Denver after skiing in the mountains, and which route we should take.

We drove up at the crack on dawn on Sunday to ski with friends at Breckenridge, stay up there overnight, and then ski Vail yesterday. It has been dumping snow. Breck received 40 inches of snow in the last week. Vail got 53. The conditions are epic right now.

The skiing was incredible. Powder powder powder, especially in the bowls. So much fun.

But then it started snowing again as we headed back to the hotel. It didn’t stop. The highway up to the tunnel that goes through the Continental Divide closed sometime in the evening. We were incredibly glad that we didn’t have to get home in that mess.

We woke up to find that it had snowed 12 inches overnight and was still coming down. I-70 eastbound was still closed through the tunnel. As the day went on, it would only get worse.

We lay in bed pondering what to do. There was no way I was willing to go over Vail pass to ski there and then come back over the pass to go home AND have to deal with tunnel traffic. Maybe we could ski Breck again. But even if we did that, we would probably be completely screwed going home. What might have been a 3 hour drive in questionable conditions earlier in the day could turn into 5+ hours if the closures continued and the holiday weekend skiers got on the road back to Denver.

We decided to bail and head home. The beauty of living in Colorado is that we can always ski another day.

And thus began the battle of the navigation apps. This is Greg’s kryptonite.

Whenever there’s traffic, he is constantly checking the apps to determine the best way to go. If a particular route is moving, he would rather take that route even if it means getting to the destination slightly later, if the alternative is to sit in traffic that isn’t moving (and for the record, I am on board with this line of thinking). But even after making the choice and committing to it, he will keep checking the apps again. Did it clear up going the other way? Did we make the wrong choice? He agonizes over it. He gets agitated.

I try to stay out of it. I tend to be very Zen about traffic. I can’t change it, so I don’t get too exorcized. However he wants to go is fine.

Waze showed that the tunnel was open and that the drive home would be around two hours. We called bullshit - there was approximately a zero percent chance that that was true. The Colorado DOT site said the tunnel was still closed. There were avalanche warnings. Google said to use the southern route and avoid the interstate. Apple maps had us heading south over the mountain passes that were so traumatizing the last time I had to drive them.

I still get super anxious at the thought of driving over those passes, but at least this time we would be doing it in daylight. So we started driving through Breckenridge. Of course, Greg kept turning onto back roads because the main drag through Breck was super slow. He kept checking his phone and exhaling in an irritated manner.

But then Apple changed its mind because apparently the tunnel had reopened. It kept telling us to turn back.

“It’s saying we should go back. Should we go back?” Greg asked.

“It’s still snowing and whatever is going on back there is likely to get worse. When more people get on the road, the road will probably close again. Let’s stick to this.”

“But it looks like it’s slowing down going up to Hoosier Pass.”

“Whatever you think, babe. But let’s make a plan and stick to it.”

“OK. Let’s keep going. It will be an adventure.”

We put on an episode of This American Life and broke out a bag of peanut M&Ms. As we headed up over the pass, the traffic was slow over the snowy roads, but we kept moving and it was fine.

Coming over the Continental Divide in bad weather is trippy. We crested Hoosier Pass and as we came down the mountain, it stopped snowing. The roads were dry. There was even a bit of sun.

It’s deceptive. It makes you forget that the weather on the other side hasn’t changed.

Greg started looking at the navigation apps.

“It looks like traffic started to move on I-70. Maybe we should have gone the other way,” he said.

“Dude.” I responded.

We kept going and arrived home without incident.

Later he sent me a screenshot of the traffic later that night. Even hours after we were back in Denver, he couldn’t stop.

If we had gone to Vail, it would have taken us almost nine hours to get home. If we had stayed in Breck, it would have been almost four. Either way, we would have had to go home via Colorado Springs, which is insane.

The moral of the story is, gather information, make a plan, and go with it. This is true for most areas of life. Don’t second guess. Stop scrolling and refreshing. Just go. Your sanity will thank you.