Day 6

Did you forget about the beginning already?

On the way out of town (Moab) I decided for the first time that I would ask someone from the area on the best way to take to my next destination: Provo, Utah. My question seemed quite simple to me: 'Would US Hwy 6 be a good road to take to Provo?' The answer: 'I think I'd take 71.' So I dive into my maps looking for a Highway, Interstate, or back road that was named "71"... if anyone knows where a road in Utah is named that, please let me know, because after looking for about thirty seconds and seeing only I-70 (which goes way southwest to meet up with I-15... so that's a hell of a lot of miles I didn't feel like traveling) I came to the conclusion that US Hwy 6 was the best way to proceed. Except for the five minute or so delay for road construction, I was not disappointed.

When I arrived in Provo I set to my task of figuring out who could answer some of the questions I had about iProvo. For those that don't know the City of Provo is funding a project to provide Fiber to the Home to every household in the city. The fiber has all been installed and they are now selling this last mile to companies to provide services to the residents of Provo. To find out the details of their system I found myself at the iProvo headquarters where I asked if they gave tours of the setup. In short, the answer was a stiff no. However, I started talking to Aaron, a Computer Science major who was mostly in charge of the translation of MPEGv2 streams provided by the television networks to the iProvo network. Turns out, he gave me a tour of the facilities anyway and I have to say they get to play with some very nice toys.

From what Aaron was telling me, the biggest problem they've run into isn't a technological limitation of the setup they have, it's a problem with the Telecoms that don't want anything to do with an already setup system. Big business wants to control everything and lock an area into an oligopoly that residents can't get free from, so any system designed to encourage competition and keep prices low is fully refused. Provo does have two providers currently providing voice, data, and video to customers, but it's been a long time coming. Financially, iProvo needs about 50% of the population subscribing to some sort of service in order to break even, and they currently have roughly 30% of the population subscribing between the two companies providing service.

Next, I had to make it to the Great Salt Lake.

- And?
- Yeah, dude. There's salt in it.
        
It's, like,
the saltiest lake in the world.
         
- It makes things buoyant, you know?
- Buoyant!

Now, I knew that there was an island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake, but I didn't know it was big enough to support over 600 head of buffalo and a passel full of elk on it's grasslands and freshwater springs. Oh, and in case you try (like I did) to get to the Great Salt Lake from you guessed it, Salt Lake City, you'll have much better luck getting to it from Ogden... Go figure, it is Utah after all.

From the Great Salt Lake it was time to find a place to crash for the night, and I knew I wanted to get a good start to the day in Grand Teton National Park. What I didn't count on was the fact that a few of the camping places would be full. So I ended up driving through a good portion of the park at night hoping to come across a camping site with my craptastic map and my GPS didn't have camp sites listed in it, which I was counting on. After driving on this narrow back road, I finally came upon the visitors center. Why the park entrance didn't have maps available I may never know, but once I found out where the camp sites where I got to spend some well needed shuteye.

It was the longest day of the year, and hopefully the longest day of the trip. Now, time for the numbers:

Day6 Distance: 605, Elevation: 4075 -> 7480

There's more? Much more!