The Switzerland of America

High into the dense snow of the mountains we curve along steep slippery roads partially covered in slushy ice.
Up and down we go until we arrive at a small town at the foot of a sharp peak. A decent little place that has multi-coloured houses as we head down the short main street.Most places are shut and the roads deserted. We later find out that this small town sometimes gets soo much snow and is that isolated that food has to be helicoptered in.
We carry on as the light begins to fade over another mountain pass to the self named 'Switzerland of America' Ouray.
An alpine looking town with excellent buildings along a short main street that seems well looked after. The whole place is also surrounded by high peaks seeming right next to the edge of town.
Our motel has the air of an alpine chalet about it. The twee décor and piped through swing music, mainly Sinatra, all add to the throwback cosiness of it all.
We awake in this soft warm haven to look outside at equally soft snow coming down into the pocket of flatland on which this town is built.
Large flakes are silently covering the streets around town. It's a friendly place and certainly looks the part but whether I could live out here for any length of time I doubt very much. We leave Ouray and the snow behind us and into the flat plains that also make up 'Colorful' Colorado. We pass through some dull backwater towns, one comically(so I thought) named Dinosaur. Imagine that, 'I'm from Dinosaur.' What a great thing to be able to say.
Unfortunately the town itself was tiny and horrendously grim. Dinosaur footprints and fossils have been found around this area and a few lame dinosaur models stand out in front of crappy tourist shops.
And just like that we're back in Utah and the state continues to unimpress with it's decaying towns and people. Vernal is the town we decide to stop overnight in but, as we soon found out, the expensive motel rooms due to a local construction boom move us on. I'll admit it does look like a building site.
I would rather drive on to a town where the motels are half the price, particularly when most of these places are particularly dull. So, by this ideal we drive on for a couple of hours deeper into Utah.
There isn't much in-between the towns other than pristine white snowfields that resemble white sand dunes and equally as thick.
Altitude is obviously a major factor in the snow coverage here as we descend for mile after mile in ever decreasing snow until we're into yet another bland city that consists of the usual chain everything and roads, not much else.
One saving grave is at least it's a cheap place to stay. The other advantage is that it's close enough to check-in and then have a look around our next and quite controversial destination, the capital of Utah and the home of the U.S. Mormon church, Salt Lake City.