Colorado - Part 2, Bishop's Castle

After we got off our mountain trail, we loaded in the car not sure of our next destination. As we rounded a curve we came upon dozens of cars parked along the edge of the road. No parking lot, but people were crossing the road and entering the trees to see this!

Bishop's Castle

Since 1969, one guy, Jim Bishop has been building this work of art. Not a home, a work of art out of the local rocks. It is something else!

See that ball up there? When people walk inside of it, the ball will spin. I didn't let the boys go up that high. Even though it is a pretty impressive building, I wouldn't say it is exactly safe. There were plenty of areas I wouldn't have let Yip and Yap walk near by themselves. There were areas I wouldn't have gone myself. DR, who deals with OSHA regulations everyday, was practically twitching with nervousness. I could see him mentally ticking off safety violations left and right. If we had stayed much longer I think his head may have spun off!

People can climb way up into that spire too and across the bridge. Practically every part is accessible to visitors. I'm not going to give you too much details or info on the castle. If you are interested just Google Bishops Castle in Colorado. You'll find anything you want to know about it.

What you won't find much about though is that Jim Bishop is a bit of a nut and conspiracy theorist. He's very outspoken against the government which is obvious by the numerous signs posted around the castle. In the past Bishop had some major disagreements with the gov't about building his castle which is inside San Luis National Forest. He also tends to rant about his beliefs to anyone who will listen. While we were there he was working on the drawbridge and went off about the "worthlessness of paper money, but that's all we have, and how Ft. Knox is only guarded so fiercely so the public won't find that there is no gold there. JFK was murdered two weeks after he tried to reintroduce gold money into our system."  He also said some things that I can't post about here. This is a family blog after all. Let's just say when I heard what he was talking about I hustled the boys out of earshot.

Jim Bishops regular job is creating decorative ironwork which he has installed throughout the castle. It is really quite impressive. If you can get past some of the anti-gov't and in-progress stages of the castle, Bishop Castle really is an interesting place to visit. For the boys it was a wonderful place to explore with niches and tunnels and spiral staircases all made out of rock. When you visit, you do feel as though a knight walking around wouldn't be so far out of place. Of course with Jim Bishop as the builder, anyone seems normal and possible in the castle!