Sunday, August 15, 2010

Hand built castle...

This weekend we took a little road trip to Wetmore, Colorado to see a castle that Jim Bishop has been building 'by hand' for the last 40 years. He has gathered and set over 1000 tons of rock to create this stone and iron castle in a secluded, forest filled area. He calls it "a monument to hardworking people" and "America's biggest, one-man, physical project."
It was pretty amazing to see and terrifying to walk through. There were open windows 50 feet off of the ground which made your grip on your children pretty tight.


He has built iron walk ways all around the castle.
It is pretty scary walking on these and being able to see the ground way below!!

His regular business is in ironwork which as you can see is all over the castle!
The stairs were so tight you could hardly get by-

The beautiful stained glass was a nice touch!

Uncle Hyrum through one of the terribly unsafe window openings.

Ok, in this picture we are on top of a bridge, not that scary huh?
Look at the next picture and you will see why my stomach was literally turning inside out and I could hardly move for fear of throwing up.

The bridge would slightly move with the wind and being able to see below was so scary!
(Yes, McKay I am a wimp!)

Again, this is Jason, close up in one of the towers...
look below to see how ridiculously high he was!

My brave little ones...

Cute Logan...

Honestly, it was so amazing but would NEVER pass safety code!
Not bad for a one-man project!

And it wouldn't have been complete without Jim Bishop's dad coming out and shouting his anti-government views to everyone, the kids were pretty entertained!

2 comments:

Aaron and Melissa said...

That's awesome!!! I'm a wimp too. My stomach lurched a little just looking at your pictures :) How incredible though!!

Sheila Madsen said...

What an amazing place. I don't think I could handle the heights but I sure do like the stain glass windows.