Capri Truck Camper

It'd been years since I was in Texas. In 2010 I hauled the fambly airlooms to my brother's ranch outside Austin. He claimed they (wife and three children) survive cuz Austin's an enclave surrounded by Texas.

Passing through El Paso it looked the same - an ennui-inducing wasteland of tattoo parlors, nail salons and purveyers of fast-cash.  The only fond memory I could dredge, way back in 1968, was of the ten-dollar, three-finger lids.

In Bluff Dale, we enjoyed meeting the folks and hearing how they'd, in the four years since they'd bought the company, brought it up from a production rate of one every three weeks, to three units a week. Orders are now backed up for several months.

On Yer Marks!!!

EEZY - EEZY

Smart-lookin' Ride

From bunk

From door

After installation we vaulted to the saddle an' high-tailed it the way we'd come -- a heretical act justified by the unbelievable condition/fact that every square inch of Texas is privately owned with NO dispersed camping.

A Boston Whaler in Rodeo, New Meixo

Monday, April 07, 2014

Rodeo has a store-cafe but no gas station. With so little to look at it was impossible not to notice the Boston Whaler. I mean, a Boston Whaler in the desert?!!

Traveling, as I do, sans itinerary, I stopped to ask if they minded talking to strangers. Chris Biro was willing and we commenced.

What follows is, of course, a truncated version.

Twenty-five years ago Chris acquired a hand-made cedar plank boat that became the "set" for his pirate-based education program about parrots. He travels the country presenting at county and state fairs and had made a decent living. But he lost the boat and over 30 parrots in his recent divorce. He said it'd taken several months to get his feet back under him but thanks to the internet he located a suitable "new" boat in Boston. Similarly, he found a "new" trailer in Florida.

When I asked how he'd gotten to Rodeo he told about a couple who, years earlier, had tried to reintroduce Thick-billed parrots into the Chiricahua Mountains across the street. 
They hadn't been successful, but Chris thought he could make it happen and had come there to try. 



He has tremendous talent with parrots and in addition to his conservation work teaches avian training.

While working at getting the parrots reestablished he's converting the whale boat into a pirate ship and rebuilding his parrot stock. He's also working with a Canadian billionaire who's built a cruiseship port in Honduras. Coincidentally, the last remaining flock of wild Thick-billed parrots is in Honduras and the man has invited Chris to give presentations to the cruise-ship travelers.  

Chris's degree was in engineering and attributes part of his tenacity and ability to discern solutions to his "engineering mindset." It seemed like a conundrum...whether the mindset came first, or the degree. Either way, he said his passion for Thick-billed parrots -- and parrots in general --  is what keeps him going.

Here's a video of Chris and Sherona, the scarlet Macaw.