Ouray is one of those little towns that hasn’t grown or changed much over the years.  We have visited here often as the town has so much going for it.  In addition to being compact and having stunning scenery, there is a large hot springs swimming pool and several water falls.  Also, for being so small there are two large commercial campgrounds in town as well as the national forest campground that we stayed at plus some smaller ones in the area.

This overlook was next to our campsite which was nice because I could walk over and get a good internet signal.

The road to the campground

Glorious scenery in every direction

Ouray itself looks like many small Colorado mountain towns…..

with many lovely Victorian styled homes.  What is surprising are the large number of houses for sale in town.  I would say every 5th house is for sale.

This was our second time to visit Box Canyon Falls.  The falls themselves are difficult to see as they are in a chute type position between rocks but the roar is unbelievable.  They are the most forceful, loud, falls you will ever visit.

The falls drop down on the left into this emerald green pool 

The Box Canyon Motel has a nice location next to the exit of the falls and like every place in town it also has views that don’t stop.

We actually left Ouray yesterday morning and I just now have time to write a post.  I have lots more pictures to show you and hope I can get another post or two done before we leave on the cruise Saturday.

While I think about it, sometime back I promised to tell why I thought we received these two free cruises. In 2004, 2007, and 2009 we took Carnival cruises and my mother went with us on the first two.  She likes to play the slot machines in the casino and on the second cruise I played with her the first night out.  I immediately hit 1600 quarters and when the casino employee paid me, he signed me up for the players club.  Since I had all that money to the good, I played for several days until I lost it again so Carnival has me on record for having plowed quite a bit into the machines…..without having a record that it was their money in the first place. The offer in the mail for two free cruises came from the Players Club of Carnival.  It’s unbelievable that $400 has returned to us a cruise to the South Pacific and Sydney as well as another cruise to Hawaii.  I shall be grateful to Carnival for evermore!