Sidetracked Charley

Yesterday was tightly scheduled. I was the first to appear at our precinct polling place. And the first to vote. And then it all went wrong. I was prepared to go from there direct to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver's license. I did not do this before my birthday because our MVD was not manned. And then it was supposedly staffed but she was in training in Rio Rancho. May was not an easy month with the Trinidad showing, etc. And the wait gave me an opportunity to hear all the horror stories about renewing my license. Seems our state had for a decade been giving just anyone a driver's license. Including but not limited to illegal aliens. They even defended this practice based on the number of workers lacking green cards which were driving illegally unless they allowed them to get a license. And they would know where to find them. Nobody noticed they all had the same residence in Jal, New Mexico. There was a booming tourist trade in a town with n...

Tour of Eagle Nest Dam Eagle Nest Dam is the largest privately built dam in the United States. It was begun by the Springer family in 1917 and completed in 1920. It and the reservoir beyond it one was privately owned by the CS Ranch which recently sold it to the state of New Mexico. Eagle Nest Lake is now a state park, but the dam and the waters in the lake are another matter all together. Water is well regulated in New Mexico especially during a drought. The lake is now at 25% of its normal capacity, and the water in the lake are water right lease holds of Raton, Cimarron, and historic ranches in the area like the UU Bar and the CS Ranch. Game and Fish department also get involved because the Cimarron River is an active fishery of the state. Our guide was a state engineer and the Gateway Museum secured permission of the land owners below the dam for us to gain access to the area. Some 100 locals and tourists attended this rare event. I have lived here almost twenty years and th...

This beautiful area of north central New Mexico where I live has been carved into counties as the population and terrain made it harder and harder to govern. What is now Taos, Colfax and Mora counties was once one huge county. Colfax needs carved again. I suffer the problems on living on its far southwest corner. I am in fact closer to the county seats of Mora and Taos than I am to that of Colfax. In my blog Off to Vote Early I mentioned the difficulty of voting early. It is an hour and 45 minute drive in the best of weather. A couple March's ago it was a 36 hour drive because of snow. I listed some statistics for the County of Colfax in that same blog. Raton is the county seat and the biggest city but has a declining population due to the downfall of mining and the drought which is having a prolonged downward spiral on ranching. As of the 2010 census it was barely over half of the population of the entire county. And my side of the county has grown in population to the point...