Our first stop on the way to Durango was Winslow at the historic La Posada Hotel which was built for the Santa Fe Railway. The architecture and artwork are very interesting. The photos of the many famous people who have stayed at this hotel line the hallway.
La Posada’s Turquoise Room is a must-do restaurant. The varied menu includes local foods. The wild tamale appetizer was wonderful. We enjoyed our meals so much that we returned for more on the way back home.
James Ranch is in close proximity to Haviland Lake where we camped. The James Ranch farm stand is only open on Saturdays this time of year, but we learned that Nature’s Oasis Natural Foods Market in Durango sells local food items from James Ranch and other farms. It was a great store to stock up on quality food. A few of the items we bought were locally raised pastured pork sausage and buffalo meat, organic veggies, artisan cheese and fresh potato-rosemary bread. Also available were microbrews from a Durango brewery. The store does carry grass-fed chicken, but I was disappointed that it was shipped all the way from Canada and therefore decided not to buy any. It’s puzzling why I can’t find pastured chicken in an area with all the lush, green farmland as far as the eye can see.
Posted by Leon
Categories: Tech
As we’re getting ready for a trip to Colorado I thought I’d take a moment to present an overview of our entertainment system in the Airstream. Let me apologize in advance if I lose anyone with the technical mumbo-jumbo below.
All the media (movies, music, tv shows) is loaded on a small linux server that is mounted in the overhead bin next to the stereo system. I built this system using a special 12v power supply, so there is no need to run the inverter to power it, and it only takes about 20 watts. The audio output from this computer is plugged into the Sony stereo system that came already installed in the Airstream.
To handle the video we’re running a piece of software called MythTV, which is an open source DVR (Digital Video Recorder – like TIVO). We’re mainly using this to load up all the DVDs that we’ve purchased so we can watch them on-demand.
For playing music we’re running a piece of software called MPD (Music Player Daemon) on the same machine. This allows us to play music either throught the built in Sony sound system in the Airstream, or through a set of Bluetooth wireless speakers when we’re sitting outside. We can control the music (both volume along with what music is playing) using remote-control of software that is running on Janet’s iPhone or my Nokia N810 internet tablet. This way we can turn the music up or down while in the bedroom without having to get up.
I’m still in the process of fine-tuning the system. At the moment I’m using a Nitendo WII bluetooth controller to control the movie playback, but I may move back to using an infrared remote for better response.
