Monday, January 14, 2008 - Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM
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Living Desert State Park
Nice park. It was nice to spend a little time in the presence of some of the areas wild animals. There are a couple of mountain lions here and a lively pack of Mexican wolves. If you've ever been scrutinized by the penetrating glare of a bald eagle you'll not soon forget it. The intensity of that stare is astonishing.
New Mexico State Parks Camping Annual Permit
On my ride back to Brantley I made the final decision to buy a New Mexico State Parks Camping Annual Permit. I'll stay in New Mexico state parks enough on this trip for it to pay for itself and if I stay longer it will be a bargain. Purchased now it is good until the end of January, 2008 The permit is $225 for an out of state resident and entitles one to unlimited nights in New Mexico state parks without hook-ups, normally $10.00 per night. Electric or sewer are $4.00 each per night extra.
Night camp
Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM
- Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies with many drop-outs.
- See a list of the nights I've camped at Brantley Lake State Park
- Locate Brantley Lake State Park on my Night Camps map
- Go to Brantley Lake State Park website
- Locate services on my Resources map
- Check the weather here
Emergent democracy
Culture brings us together, usually at a very small scale through mutual belief, trust and common interest. It educes, not compels, behavior. Culture codified is law. It is as inevitable as the day the night that as scale increases, law increases. Law enforced is government. Government does not, in the main, educe behavior, but compels it. Democratic or otherwise, rarely, very rarely, does any concentration of power or wealth desire to see subjects well informed, truly educated, their privacy ensured or their discourse uninhibited. Those are the very things that power and wealth fear most. Old forms of government have every reason to operate in secret, while denying just that privilege to subjects. The people are to be minutely scrutinized while power is to be free of examination.