Ouray is a great little tourist town that an Aussie friend and I visited a few years ago. We stopped to visit a fantastic collection of 110 year old automobiles and an unbelievable collection of brass carriage lamps and other brass "goodies". I was driving (truck and enclosed car trailer) and remember the difficulties I had in parking and even weaving through the side streets with my rig. Would be glad to return again, but maybe leave the trailer behind!

[Where is the car collection housed? - Dave]

Unless you want to sound like a tourist (which 90% of the people you see in Ouray are), pronounce the name "You-RAY".

We drove from Durango to Denver a few years back, and had lunch in Ouray. What impressed me about the town (other than the switchbacks in the road entering town), was that it is built between two tall mountains, and seems to have a very limited amount of sunlit hours.

The road through Ouray is called the Million Dollar Highway, as it's said the fill used to build it (old mining tailings) would likely yield about a million dollars' worth of metal per mile if reprocessed with modern methods; or maybe that's just for the tourists. Anyhow, it was a very pleasant drive through the mountains, at least, until we got to Leadville, which is as beautiful as its name would imply.

After three Ouray posts which I viewed and reviewed tonight I ended up taking a virtual Google Streetview tour of the town and a lookup in Wikipedia. The town looked touristy and sure enough, Ouray is the "Switzerland of America" and tourism is the major economy. Looks like a swinging place on a weekend! A town I'd love to check out, and one I'd never heard of until Russell Lee and Shorpy.

[I first went there as a tot in 1965. Ouray, nearby Silverton and the Alpine Loop are worth the trip. - Dave]