More Bishop Castle

Yours truly, intrepid stair climber, offered to take my folks and siblings to Bishop Castle this weekend.*

I tried to spot the castle from the road; even knowing when to expect it, I couldn't see the castle for the trees.

I was able to talk to the builder, Jim Bishop, this time. He was working on the outer boundaries of the property on what I had supposed to be the castle gate. Not so, he said. The arches at the front of the property were the beginning of a dungeon that would run inside the castle wall and surrounding the entire property. Further, the castle wall would have three levels facing the road, with two levels around the rest of the property. The tower at the corner he was currently working on would be about 250 feet tall when completed, slightly taller than the tallest tower on the castle itself. "God willing," he said, "I'll live to finish the wall, but even if I don't, the castle was my victory."

(He also mentioned that Bishop Castle was mentioned in a neat-looking book called Roadside Americana, by Eric Peterson, that I'll have to check out. On one page, Bishop Castle; on the other, "Can there be too many Stonehenges?" featuring Carhenge in the far, far backwaters of Nebraska.)

*Note: The other option was Boulder. Unforunately, I had not thought to research Boulder before bringing it up in front of my father, and so was unable to answer the questions "What team is UC-Boulder?" and "What colors are they?" I also missed "Where does I-25 come out" and "How far is it to Las Vegas?" (Answers: The Buffaloes; Black and Gold; North of El Paso, Texas; 790 miles (much further than I'd guessed; people who'd told me they'd made the trip in "six hours or so" must have been exaggerating).)