On a recommendation from Ann's cousin John, and after getting to the east side of the Rockies, we took a detour south on Highway 165 to see the incredible results (to date) of one man's 37 year effort. The man is Jim Bishop, an ornamental iron worker by trade, and the project is a full size castle! By good luck, he was there working on the dungeon under a wall that is in the works.

Although the castle is not finished (don't know if it ever will be), people are invited to inspect, admire, explore, climb all over, and contribute to the cause. All of the work has been done by Bishop alone, and he declares it to be the largest undertaking by a lone individual in the world - it certainly is impressive and a testament to what one person can achieve by their our hands.

By clicking on the picture to the right, you will get another page of pictures (one photo just wouldn't do the castle justice).

Returning to Highway 50 (again) and turning east, the terrain flattens and slowly heads downhill - very slowly. Pike's Peak is just visible poking it's top above the others toward the left of the photo.

As the landscape flattens, everywhere you look are farms, most seem to be growing hay and corn - to support the huge cattle industry in Kansas. All the small town along the way have grain elevators as the most prominent feature.

Around Dodge City (Queen of the Cowtowns) the 'scenic' overlooks seem to be slight rises that look down on cattle feed lots and processing plants. This one processes over 5,000 head every day.

Once we crossed into Missouri, we took another detour south to roll our bikes through the last two of the lower 48 states they hadn't been in. The area around this end of the Grand Lake O' the Cherokees is gorgeous, albeit a bit too vertically challenged for our tastes.

Returning to 50, and following it to St Louis, we took a minor side trip to the Gateway Arch. Although the National Monument and surrounding grounds are pretty cool, the parking area is NOT biker friendly.

Traveling across the middle of Illinois, the trees thin out, the land is even flatter, and the farms are larger. Again, the tallest things around are man made.

Once we reached eastern Illinois, we took a detour north to do a bit of research in Danville. Ann found quite a bit of family information at a very well supported genealogical society library. The staff was very helpful and turned up more data than we had hoped for.

After pouring over maps of different eras, we took a trip out to the land that Ann's great great grandfather owned. These days, the 70+ acres of farm land are filled with houses, and very few of the current trees are 150+ years old.

Highway 50 through south Cincinnati follows the north bank of the Ohio River. Although the Ohio side is crowded with refineries and commercial docks and enterprises, the Kentucky side is much more genteel.

As we got closer to West Virginia, the hills got 'bumpier', the trees got more dense, and the views generally more impressive than vast fields of corn and soy beans. Unfortunately, the best view were from sections of the road that had no pullouts and no safe shoulders to take pictures from, so we had to make do with a rest area.

On yet another deviation from Highway 50, we visited friends in Pennsylvania. Jym met Chuck & Bobi while stationed in Turkey 37 years ago. Their common interest at the time was motorcycles (as a practical means of transportation). On this visit, they still enjoyed a bit of wrenching together, Jym still on a BMW, while Chuck's Honda changed to a Harley.

On a trip into Pgh (that's Pittsburgh to the non-natives) we took a land & sea (actually a river) sight-seeing tour in a WWII amphibious landing vehicle. Afterward, we rode one of the two remaining 'inclines' for a spectacular view of the city, rivers and bridges. It's the only place in the US where three identical spans cross a river.

The morning we left to return to 50, Chuck & Bobi rode with us for a while to visit Coopers Rock and to share a breakfast together before we rode off to find the Atlantic (even though it wasn't actually missing).

After a slight detour in downtown DC (due to a missing sign), and a marvelous crossing of the Chesapeake Bay, we ended our Highway 50 traverse at the Atlantic in Ocean City, Maryland. We both agreed that it was the journey, and certainly NOT the destination that was the attraction for this portion of the trip.

Including side trips, it actually took us 5,327 miles to complete the 3,073 mile road. We did miss about 5 miles of the route due mainly to road construction, detours, and bad (or missing) signs.