I came across Ouray, Colorado on a month-long Western U.S. trip in 2009. It is on the tip of the Rocky Mountains between Grand Junction and Durango, Colorado. I didn’t know anything about this town of 1000 or so beforehand, so the beauty of its setting totally surprised me. Afterward, I learned that Ouray is called “The Switzerland of America”. We spent a few hours there having lunch, doing our laundry and browsing a few stores.

When I took this picture above as we were leaving town, I thought to myself, that maybe we should go back and discover more about the town. But since I am a schedule freak, I didn’t want to get out of sync with my timeline. On reflection, that was possibly one of my biggest “on-the-road” mistakes. I wish I had taken the time to enjoy where I was instead of looking to the next destination.

This “Pictures And Stories” post was brought on because I just put the above picture as wallpaper for my Mac screen, and noticed some more details that have escaped me until now. The State highway that goes between the two cities, fifty miles in each direction, was blacktopped, but the rest of the town was gravel or dirt roads.

The time I looked I noticed that most of the houses don’t seem to have garages. Given the 140 inches of snowfall they get annually, that seems strange. But, I was looking at it from a city-slicker standpoint. Their only link to civilization, fifty miles in either direction, was the two land highway with few guardrails, in the middle of the mountains. So, there was really no place to go when it snowed. But, I can’t think of a better place to be snowed in.