Highway 89 in Decline - A Photo Essay

One day I was driving home from southern Utah and decided to take the road less traveled between Zion National Park and Provo. I looked at a map and learned that Highway 89 runs approximately parallel to I-15, but across the mountains to the east. I decided that this would be a good chance to see part of Utah that I didn't know well.

I had heard, years ago, that one national magazine named Highway 89, a.k.a. Utah's State Street, the ugliest street in America. But as I drove up the road, I noticed a lot of beautiful scenery. It was far from the ugliest street in America. However, along with the beautiful landscape, I also saw a lot of abandoned houses. I wondered if these houses symbolized the trend of small towns losing their younger generations to the city, or maybe the derelict houses represented the effects of the crumbling economy on rural areas. Whatever the causes, I decided that I would like to undertake a project to document the deterioration of this beautiful section of the ugliest street in America.

This year, for our anniversary, Katie was extremely tolerant of my wish to drive Highway 89 and stop any time I saw an abandoned house. The following photo essay is the result of our trip, and is arranged in geographic order from south to north along Highway 89.

Guilt

Is it a problem for my spirituality if I post on my blog during General Conference?

Nope. No Middle Teton For Me

Bummer. The others had fun though.

Update - foot

The Dr. said this morning that I am healing on target pace. Evidently I am not faking it. The second set of x-rays confimed it.

I should be out of the boot in another four weeks.

Between now and then, I will be transitioning to walking on the boot rather than crutches.

Progress is good. I wonder if I'll be up to doing the Middle Teton in August.

Foot trouble

I had a dream last night that I went to the doctor with Katie and the doctor made me take off my boot and walk barefoot. The amazing thing was that there was no pain. The doctor started to ask me a bunch of questions, and I felt ashamed that I had obviously been faking the whole thing.

This morning my foot still hurt a bit. Bummer.

Why cities shouldn't bring in chain stores.

Jane Jacobs in Cities and the Wealth of Nations, gives a pretty convincing argument for her theory of economics.

In summary, her theory says that the most important unit of economics is the city, and the most important activity that a city can do to create a robust, healthy, and growing economy, rather than a stagnating and declining one, is to replace things that they were importing from other cities with identical or similar goods produced at the home city.

If this import-replacement process is fostered, then the economy will grow and generate real wealth and prosperity in that city. If any one or more of many things happens to decrease or end import-replacement in the city, then the economy of the city will stagnate and decline.

One of the implications of this theory is that by bringing in chain stores, the city is decreasing the production of goods in the home city, thus reducing import-replacement, and leading to the stagnation and decline of the city's economy.

No matter how much taxes the city gets from the chain store, it doesn't make up for that fact that the chain store is siphoning money out of the city economy and decreasing the variety and amount of goods produced in that home city.

Down with Walmart, Target, and every other chain store in the world!

Economics

I'm reading Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs. I found out about this book from Economic Self-reliance Club in college.

I'm no economist (Although I was sent a letter after passing my Econ 110 class in college recruiting me to be an Economics major. My mom thought this was a pretty big compliment until I told her that my friends who got C's in the class got the letter too.), but it seems like Ms. Jacobs is pretty accurate in what she is describing.

It makes a lot of sense to me. I assume it would be in the Macro-Economics category. And it helps me to dislike a lot of things about the way our economy works and the way politicians deal with the economy.

I think this book should be a required reading for all politicians before they can be allowed to make any policy or law.

I'm also wondering why more economists don't talk about Ms. Jacobs' theory. Or maybe they do and I don't know it. Maybe there are flaws to it that I, being untutored, economically speaking, don't know or see.

Despite that, reading the book makes me dream about being in charge of a city and attempting to use her theory to guide the development of a robust economy.

There's got to be something good in a theory that inspires me like that.

Update - Overdue

Back by popular demand...

Choose the answer that does not accurately describe a development in my life since the last time I posted, 1.6 years ago.

A. I ran a marathon
B. I finished my internship
C. My father passed away
D. I got married
E. I graduated
F. I got a job
G. I was abducted by aliens

I will leave you to figure out which is not true.

Glad to back.

Jon (and Katie)

Where does the time go?

It's amazing to me how quickly two months have gone by. I just had a two week spell of sickness durring which I didn't run. Monday I did some backcountry, so today or tomorrow will have to be a run. Gotta get back into it.

Gearing up to go

I'm on the mend and feeling like Saturday will be a good day to start the training runs. Also, last night Matt, my roommate on my team, and I went to Wasatch Running Company for their team night and geared up for the training. The service there was great and they got into the cancer research battle by giving us a nice discount. We got new shoes and some running tights. Don't worry ladies, I'll still wear shorts over the tights.

Bump in the road.

Wouldn't you know it? I got sick just as I started the serious training. Lovely. Hopefully I'll be feeling a bit better on Saturday for the first group training run.

Gentlemen, start your training!

On Thanksgiving morning, I ran the Orem City International Thanksgiving Day 4k to officially begin my training. It was a fun experience. I started out way too fast for me (6:43 for the first mile) and then settled down to a comfortable pace. I must have settled way down, because I ended up with a 7:32 average for the race. Official results can be seen here. Granted, that's less than a sixth of the marathon, but for just beginning my training, I'm happy with the results. Today, I did a 4.5 mile training run with a nice long hill in the middle. Thus begins the training. Also, I've had some very generous early donars to the cause. Check out the fundraising page here: http://www.active.com/donate/huntsman07/jcox116.

Dig Deep for Doug

In mid-August, my Father was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer: carcinoma of unknown primary. He has been receiving treatment at the Huntsman Cancer satellite office in Provo since then. As a family, we have seen many people rally around him to offer support and faith. I have decided to run the SLC Marathon and raise money for Huntsman Cancer Research in honor of him and his marathon against cancer. I have set a goal to raise $1,000 for cancer research. I would like to invite you to be a part of this effort by contributing to Huntsman Cancer research. If you would like to contribute, I suggest just one dollar for every mile of the marathon ($26.20), but feel free to contribute however much you are able. Just go to the fundraising page: http://www.active.com/donate/huntsman07/jcox116 and contribute however much you would like.

Also, I will be tracking my training here on my blog, and you are welcome to visit any time to see how it is going, or check back on the fundraising page for updates on the progress of the fundraising efforts.

Thank you for your support and friendship.

Ready, set.....

Don't blind yourselves. :)

rumors

The rumors are true. I shaved my head. By popular demand (one person is popular enough :) I will begin updating my blog again. Unfortunately my new narsissistic roommate messed up our wireless connection at the apartment and won't admit it. I'm forced to use the public library's connection, which is slow, and means I have to go to the library instead of updating from my apartment. So until that gets fixed, I can't post pics of my head, but hopefully it will be fixed soon. Till then, you can immagine what I look like. One person at work said I looked like Ghandi. Ciao.

Great day for adventure

Practiced setting protection on a climb up Little Cottonwood. Ran/hiked up Cascade Saddle and back. The trail was a lot steeper than I remembered, and the last half mile was in snow at a fifty degree angle, which slowed me down quite a bit since running shoes don't do too well cutting steps. It felt good. 5,800 ft. to 9,500 in five miles and two hours. It really would have taken probably 1.5 hours if the snow wasn't there. I even found a stick to use as an ice ax for the traverses across the snow and the glissades down. It only took 40-something minutes to run down. Why do I enjoy this so much? I enjoy pushing myself, challenging myself, and seeing what I can do.

Busy day

It's 11:40 a.m. I've already run/hiked up to the meadow below Squaw Peak, and run down, been to the stake breakfast, got a girl's number, confirmed my date for tonight, and renewed acquainance with another great girl. Not a bad start to the day. We'll see how the rest of it goes.

Everest Survival

Check out this story of survival: everest.net

Crazy stuff happens in the mountains. We don't understand everything the body experiences up there. I'm sure there will be a book or article written about this, but this dispatch has the facts, if there is any such thing. It sounds like everyone was doing the best they could with the knowledge they had. I don't think anyone would have left him for dead if they thought there was a chance to save him without excessive threat to themselves.

Karma

Wouldn't you know it? The girl I thought I might have a chance of being interested in, the one I met last week in institue, the one who seemed somewhat interested in me, didn't show up to Institute tonight. I need to stop stepping on those ants and worms.