Wealth! Fame! Power!

Well, not really. But my family did go on a weekend trip to Bellevue, Washington, a ritzy suburb of Seattle, to visit some old friends of the family. (More on this further down the page.)

J. Benton Bell is 92 years old, and his wife isn't much younger. He tells stories of how he ate orange sandwiches and lived in a rented closet during the depression, preaching at a mission to the Navy during WWII, went to Africa as a missionary for who knows how long, pastored many churches, ect. He's definitely a stalwart man of faith. The problem is that even though is is pretty spry for 92, he can't travel more than a few miles, and so we go to visit them every few years.

Now, about the wealth and fame: the Bells live with their daughter and son in law in an expensive condominium on the waterfront, and so I got a glimpse of wealthy living. I even got to shower in the clubhouse [:P]. The daughter and her husband took us out Sunday afternoon after church in a very fast "cigar boat", and we went cruising around a bay of Lake Washington.

The condo is less than a mile from William Gates III's estate, and I saw bits of it (it's rather shaded by huge trees) and also a pretty close view of the guest mansion Gates just built as we cruised around. There was even a cable car running up the hill from the waterfront!

We then went on almost to the locks, and saw lots of neat buildings, all the million dollar houseboats, shipping traffic, ect. Several pontoon aircraft from some kind of special airline kept flying over us and landing on the water.

I really enjoyed being allowed to drive the boat [:D], and it was quite fast. I couldn't even hear myself shout because of the wind. Altogether, it was fantastic, and I wish I hadn't forgotten the camera. On that note, my cheap card reader seems to think that the card is write protected no matter what. It has this little tiny contact that the lock switch presses, and it's always the first thing to go with SD readers. Come on, even the ancient floppy drives had an optical sensor for the lock!

So there is my brief taste of wealth and power. (I was planning to blog this from the condo, so I could say I wrote it within walking distance of Gate's place, but time didn't permit.)