Is it Ooo-ray? YOU-ray? OR-ay? I have heard all three pronunciations and more.

Doesn't matter. Ouray, Colorado, is one heck of a little vacation destination,any way you say it.

My sons and I made the trek there this past week to meet up with my sister, Susan O'Meara, and her husband, Kelly O'Meara, who reside in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Susan and Kelly vacation in the Ouray area each summer and I always look forward to meeting up with them.

Ouray is blessed with natural hot springs which have been harnessed for over 100 years. The result is huge, public swimming pools varying in temperatures from lukewarm to hot-tub hot. Lounging in the pools is at once relaxing and, allegedly, therapeutic. Our happy group spent several hours per day in them.

We also hiked because to go to Ouray and not hike would be, well, a travesty. The area is crisscrossed with trails in all degrees of difficulty. My brother-in-law is a superb outdoor guide who led us through the sort of beauty only Colorado mountain forests offer.

The heart of Ouray is similar to most small, quaint mountain towns that dot Colorado. The history of the community is tied to mining, of course. The integrity of turn-of-the-century architecture has been preserved in the downtown. Restaurants and gift shops fill the town's old buildings of commerce.

My boys and I rented the upstairs of an old house, the attic area, actually, which has been converted into one big, comfy room. We were just one block off Main Street. We had our own little deck with spectacular mountain views.

A doe deer seemed to be the inn pet. She hung out in the courtyard below each day nibbling the frustrated innkeeper's landscape plants and slept there, apparently, at night. I'd step out on the deck each morning to sit and sip my coffee only to have her look up at me with those big doe eyes and yawn. Well, maybe not yawn because I am not sure deer yawn. But, her eyes had the look of a yawn. She was unafraid.

There is so much to do in the Ouray area we did not begin to scratch the surface in the few days we were there. In addition to hiking, thermal pools, shopping and dining, boating and golfing are available just down the road in Ridgway. Our family agreed an entire summer could be happily spent there.

Though the drive from the Denver metro to Ouray is six hours or more, depending on how much road repair and how many hay trucks, I consider it well worth the sacrifice.

We are already planning to meet up there again in 2009.

Learn more about Ouray and the area at:

http://www.ouraycolorado.com/

http://www.parks.state.co.us/Parks/ridgway