Hawaii: Catering to the Fewer

We stayed in a Waikiki hotel in 2012

The number of tourists to Hawaii hasn't recovered to 2019 levels, but total tourist spending of $11 billion in the first half of 2025 is nearly 24% higher than the first half of 2019. [bold added]

The shift toward fewer visitors who are spending more reflects the type of visitor Hawaii is now aiming to attract.

“It’s better for everyone, us residents, the infrastructure, and yes, even the industry. Hawaii doesn’t need more people. We need the right people, the ones who respect the place and are willing to invest back into it, this is what I have been pushing for years,” Bruce Fisher, Hawaii travel adviser and owner of Hawaii Aloha Travel, told SFGATE in an email.

Your humble blogger is a frequent returnee, but because he is able to stay with relatives has not been the target demographic for the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. For one out of five trips we'll splurge and stay in a hotel, and I must admit that Waikiki is very pleasant to walk around at night. Age and health will limit our future trips, so we'll be opening our wallets more. Besides, I've always wanted to be thought of as being among the "right people."

Hard Rock Tejon

Hard Rock Tejon's estimated cost is $600 million (Wald Arch/Hard Rock/SfGate)

A new Hard Rock casino will open next month near Bakersfield:

When it opens, it will be among California’s biggest casinos...

The casino announced the early opening date of the project’s first phase, which includes 150,000-square-feet of gaming space. For context, that massive footprint would put it on par with some of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas including the MGM Grand, Bellagio, Aria and Mandalay Bay, which all hover slightly above 150,000 square feet. The Hard Rock Casino Tejon gaming floor is also set to be around 20,000 square feet bigger than the one at Caesars Palace...

Initial visitors to the casino can expect to find Vegas-style amenities on opening day. There will be more than 2,000 slot machines, more than 50 live table games (including blackjack and multiple poker games) and VIP rooms for both blackjack and baccarat. Visitors will also find Hard Rock’s signature music memorabilia strewn about the property, according to a news release.

The opening will also feature various dining choices, including the Hard Rock Cafe, Deep Cut Steaks | Seafood and YOUYU, an Asian-inspired noodle bar. In addition, there will be a food hall featuring coffee, pastries, street tacos, wood-fired Italian dishes and Southern comfort food, as well as a gift shop featuring Hard Rock merch...

The gaming and restaurant footprint is only the first phase. The project is expected to be 700,000 square feet in total, with the second phase adding a 400-room hotel with a pool and spa. A 2,800-seat event venue is also in the offing.

We drive the I-5 from the Bay Area to Southern California every 3 years or so and budget 6½ hours for the trip. Next time we'll add half a day (and a few hundred dollars) to check out the Hard Rock Tejon.

This Could be China's Future, Too

WSJ: At night, the Chongqing skyline illuminates with neon lights, reminiscent of the film “Blade Runner”</td>

I thought I was done with international travel, but I might make an exception for Chongqing:

China has long awed visitors with wonders such as the Great Wall and the terracotta warriors buried in an ancient tomb. Now visitors are being dazzled by Chongqing’s vision of a real-world cyberpunk city.

Until a few years ago, Chongqing was largely a trivia answer: the world’s most populous city by some measures, with 32 million people in a South Carolina-size area. World War II history buffs knew it as the Chinese Nationalists’ wartime capital.

Then viral videos of its impossible architecture changed its image. Suddenly, many Chinese and international travelers alike felt they had to visit.

Chongqing welcomed 120 million tourists who stayed overnight last year, up 17% from 2023. In the first half of this year, Chongqing’s border checkpoints handled a record number of foreign nationals—but only 330,000, so overseas visitors who make it here can still brag about visiting a hidden gem.

Chongqing's popularity is not imposed from the top but is a grass-roots phenomenon. Chongqing native Ryan Chen, aka the "Chinese Trump," is a popular social media influencer.



Don't make the mistake of thinking that because China's problems are vast, that it is declining. Its dynamism is larger than anything we can imagine, too.

Hawaii Tourism Warning Signs

Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head Crater (Getty Images/SFGate)

Hawaii tourism is down:

Summertime is a peak season for Hawaii from June through August. But the month of June is already showing decreasing daily passenger counts compared with 2024, mirroring what many in the Hawaii tourism industry believe will be a slow summer with less travelers and fewer bookings...

Hawaii has not reached 10 million visitors again since 2019. As the state worked to regain ground by enticing travelers to come back after COVID-19 and then after the Maui fires, it has been thrown another challenge: a new presidential administration.

In May, the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii released a report forecasting changes to come, citing federal policy shifts as a cause of Hawaii’s declining economic outlook. “International arrivals are already down 3–6%, with double-digit percentage declines in airlift from Japan and Canada,” the report said.

The visitor decline is somewhat puzzling because the U.S. economy is still strong, and, based upon the stock market's recovery, the negative concerns about tariffs appear to have been overstated. In any case tariffs should have little effect on service industries like tourism.

This article is guilty of a lazy analysis. Because no one can definitively say why something is worse, blame politics, which have been polarized for at least 30 years. IMHO, tourism is down because of the escalation in hotel and rental-car costs. I visit Hawaii regularly because I can stay at my parents' house and borrow their car; most potential visitors aren't as lucky as I am.

Ahwahnee Hotel: Unsatisfactory

The Great Lounge in 2009

One of our best vacations this century was an unplanned trip to the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite.

We roamed the uncrowded 98-year-old national landmark shortly after the new year in 2009. The snow made it difficult to get in or out, and we were "forced" to extend our stay. No worries--no one in our party complained.

So we were disappointed to read that the Ahwahnee Hotel has been mismanaged, according to reports from the National Park Service.

Rodent activity, improper food storage, lapses in facility maintenance and other public health concerns are among the pervasive issues called out in the report. The park service also dings Yosemite Hospitality for failing to conduct inspections.

Yosemite Hospitality received an overall “unsatisfactory” rating. That’s the lowest possible rating and a downgrade from previous years; in 2023, 2022, 2019 and 2018, Yosemite Hospitality received a “marginal” rating in its annual review.

The litany of problems will take years to correct. I'm glad we went when we did.

Strictly Business is Becoming Nicer

Grand Hyatt at SFO suite: ready for a business meet

In my working days I would sometimes stay at airport hotels. Reasons were specific: only one or two business meetings, no time to tour the host city and/or dine at a nice restaurant, and a tight calendar that necessitated going to the next destination after meetings were over. (Keeping costs down was a factor but not as important as the others.)

One may think that the popularity of video conferencing would have damaged the airport-hotel business model, but one would be wrong:

The Grand Hyatt SFO was charging nearly $500 for a one-night weekday stay in late May.

Luxury hotels inside airports, not to be confused with those clusters of budget-friendly chain hotels a free shuttle ride away, are having a moment. Affluent vacationers and business travelers are splurging before or after a flight in the same way they are paying up for cushier plane seats with more perks.

Hoteliers say they are selling convenience, service and amenities you won’t find in that airport SpringHill Suites or Hampton Inn—bathrobes, craft cocktails and fine dining. And guests are buying.

The 351-room Grand Hyatt SFO, which opened in late 2019, posted its highest monthly occupancy rate (84%) and average daily rate ($362) last fall. It finished the year with significantly better metrics than the overall San Francisco hotel market, according to reports by the airport commission. The hotel and airport are owned by the city.

At the Westin Denver International Airport, also a city-owned hotel, the average daily rate last year rose to $337.39, up 5.3% from 2023 and 15% from 2022, according to the city. Officials say rates have held up through the first five months of this year despite economic uncertainty.

At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, the 20-year-old Grand Hyatt DFW in July will begin a $34 million makeover that includes new rooms, room renovations and a restaurant and fitness-center overhaul.

One of the joys of non-business travel is the opportunity to walk around the host city. Staying in Waikiki or Union Square for me is vastly preferable to lodging in HNL or SFO, respectively, so the improving economics of airport hotels is likely due to business travel. It does make some logical sense--business people fly less frequently, but when they do everything is first class. However, more analysis is definitely called for.

It's Not the Size That Counts

A 175 sq ft ‘Snug Single’ room at the
Kimpton Fitzroy London (IHG/WSJ)

In more than half the cities I visit I like to spend my time out and about, so I'm favorably inclined toward this lodging trend.

Party-of-one rooms...represent a growing category in the hospitality industry, serving everyone from the odd-man-out on group trips to solo jet-setters looking to save. Many such units barely clear 175-square-feet, but in big-city destinations where sightseeing rather than in-room lingering tops the to-do list, they work.

If it's clean, comfortable, quiet, and has fast WiFi, I'm good.

Climate Change: Let's See if They'll Buy That Reason for Higher Taxes

My 2016 rented condo would have been subject to the tax.

Hawaii raised its hotel tax from the current 9.25% to 11% "to combat climate change."

The hotel tax is slated to jump from 9.25% to 11% beginning January 2026, specifically to combat climate change, according to the bill. Lawmakers say the increase will generate between $85 million and $100 million a year. Funding from the tax will be used to prevent effects from climate change like coastal erosion, flooding and wildfires, factors that many regions across Hawaii are vulnerable to, [state Rep. Adrian K.] Tam said at Friday’s meeting. The tax would also apply to tourists visiting the islands via cruise ships.

[Gov. Josh] Green has long been in favor of charging a $50 fee from tourists to enter the state, but various versions of the bill that have included a flat fee have died, since some lawmakers said it would violate the constitution’s protections for free travel, according to the Associated Press. Increasing the lodging tax was a compromise.

It sure is lucky that the science of global warming climate change came around to justify increasing the tax on beleagured tourists. After all, "coastal erosion, flooding and wildfires" had been occurring long before Captain Cook dropped anchor in 1778, but maybe the rubes will believe that driving their SUVs made the problems worse.

Meanwhile, thank goodness I have relatives that let me crash on their couch.

Finding Home 8,000 miles Away

Bangkok's Terminal 21 (Andrew Chamings/SFGATE)

San Francisco's busiest and arguably most beautiful mall is in Thailand.[bold added]

8,000 miles away in Thailand, malls are thriving, and one in particular has devoted tens of thousands of square feet of gleaming floor space to a rosier view of San Francisco.

On a recent family trip to Bangkok, alongside tuk-tuk food tours and a night at the legendary Muay Thai boxing stadium, the city’s preponderance of malls were high on the list. There’s the ginormous Iconsiam complex on the river, which can be accessed by boat and features 7,000 shops over 10 stories and an IMAX theater. There’s the maze-like MBK mall where bartering is encouraged and vendors hawk dubious high-end designer gear for pennies. And, of course, there are the vibrant and chaotic outdoor night markets dotted across the city, replete with some of the best street food in the world. But at Terminal 21, a huge airport-themed luxury megamall on the busy Sukhumvit Road thoroughfare, Bangkok pays homage to San Francisco.

...A giant Golden Gate Bridge replica, hanging over the entire mall below, even features little cars driving across the bay. While I was there, a group of schoolgirls took selfies in front of the towering International Orange structure. Other nice details on the floor include the Haight-Ashbury intersection, two Tony Bennett-inspired heart sculptures, a nearly full-size California Street cable car replica on a turnaround and a giant crab directing shoppers to the restrooms.

Its real-world griminess has not yet displaced the idealized version of San Francisco in the world's popular imagination. There's still time to turn it around, but don't wait too long, San Francisco.

Paia and Its Cemeteries

Paia Hongwanji Cemetery (Forrest and Kim Starr)

SFGate travel writer Eric Brooks stumbles upon abandoned graveyards. On the pathway to Baldwin Beach Park near Paia, Maui

There, just beyond some overgrown grass, was what looked like a group of headstones. Next to that, another 5 to 10 feet away, were more headstones. I rounded the corner to see an entire graveyard surrounded by sand and unmaintained brush. I estimated maybe 100 headstones in all...

Baldwin Beach Park and much of the surrounding land used to be owned by Maui’s Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company, or HC&S, a titan of the top industry in Hawaii for many years, according to Lucienne de Naie, author and docent at Hale Hoikeike at the Bailey House, a local history and art museum located in nearby Wailuku.

“The big boom in sugar cane came in the 1880s and 1890s,” de Naie told SFGATE.

That’s when plantation owners, keen to take advantage of the growing sugar cane business, began to import contract workers from countries like Japan, China, the Philippines and Portugal. “There were little camps of Japanese workers; the plantations tended to segregate their workers,” said de Naie, a resident of Maui since the 1970s who knows Paia very well. “The Chinese workers would live in another, the Philippine workers would live in another and so on. The camps had communal activities.”

...Citing a book called “Island of Maui Cemetery (Map & History) Directory,” de Naie was able to pinpoint the original name of the cemetery as the “Paia Hongwanji Cemetery.” It was associated with a Buddhist group called the Makawao Hongwanji, she added, which opened a temple in the area in 1908. The group moved not too far northeast to Upper Paia in 1917, later relocating about 7 miles southeast to Makawao in 1968, according to their website...

“Paia is the cemetery capital of Maui,” de Naie added. “For a small town, it probably has nine to 10 recognized cemeteries. It’s amazing how many cemeteries are there. Catholic, Protestant, Chinese and Mormon cemeteries. It’s a very easy place to dig, with the sand dunes. You put them where you can easily dig.”

Paia boy Fred, my father-in-law

My father-in-law (1922-2001) and his seven siblings were born in Paia. On a trip 35 years ago he showed us his old two-story house, now a tourist shop, and the old Maui High school buildings in a defunct sugar cane field. He regaled us with stories about the best fishing spots, the mischief he and his brothers got into, and life in old Paia town with Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Filipino children. (I won't use the names they actually called each other because they would offend modern sensibilities.)

Later we drove along the narrow cliffside rode to the Hotel Hana, where my inlaws honeymooned. Then we visited his half brother George in Kahului, and we flew back to Honolulu. Little did I know that it would be the last time I would visit central Maui.

Carpe diem.

Yosemite-Adjacent Vacation

(2009 photo)

Our trip to Yosemite National Park in January, 2009, was unplanned yet turned out to be much better than we had a right to expect. The youngster had never been to Yosemite, and we happened to be only an hour away while driving home from another event.

We snagged a room at the Ahwahnee Hotel and extended our stay because of heavy snowfall. Both the hotel and the Valley floor with the famous landmarks were uncrowded, and we wandered to our hearts' content.

After that pleasant experience I have had no compelling desire to return.

On the nature trail

A family member was meeting some friends to see the popular Yosemite "Firefall" this weekend, and on Thursday I offered to accompany him on the 3½-hour drive. He readily agreed, and I bunked with him at the Rush Creek Lodge and Spa, which is outside the Park, 26 miles from the Visitors Center.

While he went to meet his friends, I spent a very pleasant day walking around the Lodge and its nature trails. I dined at the restaurant, which had a limited number of selections that were excellently prepared, and I relaxed with a book.

Sometimes one can have an excellent vacation without planning or having to "do" anything. As for my traveling companion, he got his pictures of Firefall, and we both came away happy.

We Escaped the Vortex This Time

(Baron/Lynx/Chronicle)

Some family members will be heading east to the Sierra mountains today, and we're lucky that California is out of the path of the polar vortex that is hitting much of the country.

The majority of the country will wake to bone-chilling temperatures Thursday, with dozens of temperature records at risk of being broken.

The massive outbreak of cold air is connected to the polar vortex, a lobe of frigid air that has broken away from the North Pole and settled over the middle of the country.

The shot of cold air won’t impact California or the West Coast. In the wake of a weak cold front that passed through Wednesday, a high-pressure ridge has developed near California, shielding the state from the cold air and from a powerful storm system set to drench the Pacific Northwest this weekend.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the Arctic polar vortex

is a band of strong westerly winds that forms in the stratosphere between about 10 and 30 miles above the North Pole every winter. The winds enclose a large pool of extremely cold air. (There is an even stronger polar vortex in the Southern Hemisphere stratosphere in its winter.) The stronger the winds, the more the air inside is isolated from warmer latitudes, and the colder it gets.

A normal, stable polar vortex stays in the stratosphere above the Arctic, which gets extremely cold in the winter while we in the mid-latitudes experience warmer air and moderate winters. The polar vortex isn't always stable, however.

“We did have a sudden stratospheric warming in January,” explained [NOAA's Dr. Amy] Butler. “The polar vortex weakened. It got stretched out of shape and slid southward off the pole. Most of the time when this happens—and it happens on average about every other year in the Arctic—some part of the mid-latitudes will ultimately experience a cold air outbreak."

What causes the polar vortex to get "stretched out of shape" is the $64,000 question, and while some blame their favorite culprit, global warming, Dr. Butler refuses to take the bait: [bold added]

“I don’t think there is any convincing evidence of a long-term trend in the polar vortex. What we see in the record is this very interesting period in the 1990s, when there were no sudden stratospheric warming events observed in the Arctic. In other words, the vortex was strong and stable. But then they started back up again in the late 1990s, and over the next decade there was one almost every year. So there was a window of time in the early 2010s where it seemed like there might be a trend toward weaker, more disrupted or shifted states of the Arctic polar vortex. But it hasn’t continued, and more and more, it’s looking like what seemed to be the beginning of a trend was just natural variability, or maybe just a rebound from the quiet of the 1990s.”

Not only does the data not yet support the global-warming-causes-colder-winter hypothesis, the NOAA goes on to describe how leading climate models give conflicting results:

Some climate model experiments do predict that continued warming will lead to a weakening of the polar vortex...At the same time, other model simulations predict that warming and sea ice loss will lead to a stronger polar vortex.

I've decided to hold onto my internal-combustion-engine vehicles for a few more years; there's always a gas station nearby so I won't freeze to death in my car when another vortex hits, and I can't say the same for EV charging stations.

Haleakala Ride

Looking down at the clouds from the summit (Volcano tours)

Another activity that I enjoyed in my younger days may be outlawed.

A popular Hawaii tourist activity, Maui downhill bicycle tours offer visitors an opportunity to see stunning landscapes on a ride down the winding roads of Haleakala with little physical exertion.

The activity, however, comes with some risk, as bicyclists share the road with vehicles, whose drivers sometimes get impatient, and downhill speeds may cause a rider to lose control.

Throughout its history, accidents have happened. Some have died. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Hins, a 68-year-old visitor from Arizona, was killed while biking down Haleakala as part of a group. The Maui Police Department said Hins crossed the yellow double-solid lane into the oncoming lane and crashed into a vehicle.

A new law addressing the safety of commercial guided and unguided bike tours, Ordinance 5439, just went into effect last year to alleviate concerns about safety and disruption to local traffic.,,“There’s been some in the community who want an outright ban on this type of industry operating on the road,” Mike Molina told KHON-TV. Molina, a former Maui County councilmember, championed the new law...

Haleakala downhill bicycle tours started in 1983. Over the next 20 years, the industry flourished, as it was a way for visitors to see Haleakala National Park at sunrise, then do a fun experiential activity. By 2007, about 90,000 visitors participated in bike tours annually, and revenues were estimated at $11 million...

Last year was the first time in 15 years that a new law was enacted to regulate the industry. Ordinance 5439 limits commercial tours to 10 riders, requires a minimum age of 15 and restricts guided and unguided tours to between Mile Marker 3 and Mile Marker 9.5 on Haleakala Crater Road.

Only a handful of companies continue to operate the downhill bike tours today and have altered their itineraries to accommodate the changes.

Depending on the operator, guided tours begin with a van ride up Haleakala Volcano to 10,000 feet to watch the sunrise inside Haleakala National Park. Then, the van brings the group down to around 6,500 feet, where cyclists launch after a safety briefing. Bicyclists then descend on a winding road of 29 switchbacks, while the van follows behind.

Ordinance 5439 cut some mileage from the tours by prohibiting specific areas of road and excluding the town of Kula. Operators have improvised by adding a second bike loop of the switchbacks, a van ride through Kula or lunch stop in Makawao, before continuing on the bikes to ride down to Haiku or Paia, where the tour ends.

I've done the summit downhill a number of times, the most recent occasion being a corporate retreat in the mid-1990's. We watched the sun rise over the crater, then cruised to Paia without stopping. It was early morning, traffic was light, and this weekend bicyclist used the brakes often. However, it is easy to see how increased auto traffic, combined with unskilled bicycle tourists, made serious accidents inevitable. Like many things in life, I'm glad I got to do the Haleakala ride before it got regulated away.

Once an Asset, Now a Liability

Proximity to San Francisco was once an asset but is now a liability to some Bay Area counties.

Headline: San Francisco's rotten reputation is killing tourism across the Bay Area [bold added]

According to the survey results, the city’s rotten reputation — regardless of whether this perception was valid or not — is actively deterring domestic travelers from even considering the rest of the region.

A striking number of respondents, nearly half in some cases, agreed that San Francisco’s woes have made visiting a county like Sonoma unattractive, even though it’s 45 miles away and vastly different from the city.

We unwound at the Kenwood Inn in Sonoma County

Fixing San Francisco's problems isn't as critical to the economic health of counties that are tech-based, but those dependent on travel and leisure, like Sonoma and Napa, have been particularly affected.

Speaking from personal experience, we've been very satisfied with overnight trips to Wine Country. Napa and Sonoma counties are well over an hour's drive from San Francisco, but both geographically (hot and dry during the summer) and culturally they feel much more distant. Here's hoping that they can endure the pain while San Francisco fixes itself.

Ticket to Ride

The old SF Greyhound station on 7th was clean, safe
and reliable. It has since moved to the Transbay terminal.

An old-fashioned way of getting the homeless out of San Francisco is being revived: [bold added]

Mayor London Breed on Thursday ordered city employees to offer homeless people a bus ticket out of town before presenting shelter or housing as an option.

...Thursday’s directive marks Breed’s latest effort to prove she’s taking a firm stance to address the city’s homelessness and overdose crises. Breed is in the middle of a tough re-election fight with many voters focused on the conditions of city streets and the state of unsheltered homelessness.

...The program of busing people out of San Francisco has existed for years, but it saw a sharp decline during the pandemic, prompting some critics and at least one mayoral rival to question why Breed’s administration hadn’t pushed the program more forcefully. Officials had already vowed to ramp it up earlier this year.

Frankly, if I were a homeless person in San Francisco I wouldn't take that deal. San Francisco is currently spending more than $100,000 per person on homeless services, and chances are that, if I stayed, some of it will trickle through to me, not all of it being absorbed by middlemen and bureaucrats.

Besides, how would I get my tent and shopping carts full of stuff on the bus?

Oahu No Ka Oi

Oahu is the cheapest, hands down (Merc)

The answer has long been obvious, even if the visitor doesn't have a free "hotel" and car like your humble blogger:

What’s the cheapest Hawaiian island to visit? [bold added]

Of the four main Hawaiian islands for tourism — Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island — Oahu is the cheapest Hawaiian island to visit by multiple metrics. Oahu has the lowest daily average hotel room rate of the islands and the lowest average daily spending per tourist, according to May 2024 data from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority.

Though the average room rate in May 2024 across all of Hawaii was $342, Oahu hotel rooms average about 21% less, coming in at $272. That translates to about $70 per night less than the average...

One reason for Oahu’s lowest average room rate? The island also has the biggest supply. In fact, Oahu had more than double the number of hotel room nights than Maui, the next closest contender...

So why is spending on Oahu lower than on other islands? Not only are there more hotels, but also more restaurants and other types of businesses. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, Honolulu County in Oahu had more than 21,000 businesses in 2020, while Maui County in Maui had fewer than 5,000. The increased competition lowers prices for consumers.

There’s also just a lot of free and cheap stuff to do on Oahu. Many of the top activities — including visiting the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, lounging on Waikiki Beach and hiking the Makapuʻu Point Lighthouse Trail — are free. It costs just $5 per person to enter Diamond Head State Monument (though it’s an additional $10 for parking).

And because of Honolulu’s robust bus network and walkability, it’s easy to get around Honolulu without a rental car. For places more difficult to get to, it’s possible to rent a car for just a day or rely on rideshare services like Uber or Lyft.

I use my parents' house and Nissan Altima when I go to Oahu, so I'm able to keep the trip cost to under $1,000 including plane fare. Even so, I typically only use the car to visit Mom in assisted living and like to spend my free time hoofing it around Waikiki and Ala Moana, where there are many quality, inexpensive restaurants.

Some of my friends, whom I like despite their snootiness, only go to the Neighbor Islands. I'm not ashamed to say that this middle-class kid prefers Oahu.

"Take Nothing for Their Journey"

Today's reading from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 6:

"He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics."

The minister said that she took two lessons from Jesus' command to travel lightly: that we must have faith in a "radical dependence on God" and that we must be willing to "let go of our grip on those long-held practices and traditions that may not be helpful anymore."

Concerning the latter, she clarified that she doesn't mean that we must throw out the liturgy and all our traditions, but that we must be open to listen to the Spirit's voice if it tells us to change.

At this stage in my life, it's the former lesson, to leave our possessions behind, that speaks most loudly. All the financial security in the world can delay one's fate but not prevent it. In the end our accomplishments, our wealth, and any pride we might have in them mean little except more material for the obituary.

Later in Mark, Chapter 10, Jesus is more specific (my own reflection and not part of the minister's sermon): [bold added]

17 And when He had gone forth onto the road, there came one running, and knelt before Him and asked Him, “Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

18 And Jesus said unto him, “Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God.

19 Thou knowest the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother.’”

20 And he answered and said unto Him, “Master, all these have I observed from my youth.”

21 Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him and said unto him, “One thing thou lackest: Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

22 And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved, for he had great possessions.

I am and have been that young man, unwilling to take that final step and leave all behind. Sure, there are justifications that few will quarrel with--I have to take care of my family, I don't want to be a burden to others, etc.

But it's also true that what we thought of as a choice--to take nothing for the journey--was never in the end really a choice at all.

The Re-rating of Murphy Beds

(WSJ gif)

Like other items (e.g., iron cookware, analog appliances) associated with a humble past, Murphy beds are now considered a prestige item:

Beds once associated with claustrophobic Depression-era flophouses are popping up at ski resorts, timeshares and luxury suites.

Hotel rooms are shrinking, and travelers are increasingly demanding their rooms be more than just places to catch some shut-eye. That has led hotel developers to turn to an old standby—the Murphy bed.

Today’s hideaway wall bed isn’t the rickety, dust-covered last resort many travelers might expect, say hoteliers, designers and furniture companies. They pitch it as an aesthetic marvel that’s also comfortable.

Murphy beds were a staple of pre-War comedy, which showed characters stuck in the walls. Older folks still chuckle at the memory, then their eyes widen in surprise at what modern designers have done with Murphy beds.

Working Vacation

Matsumoto's shaved ice is in this town square.

Going to Hawaii is usually a mix of business and pleasure. When I'm traveling by myself I like to take care of essential tasks (banking, taxes) first. I'm not monomaniacal; I do take regular breaks at the beach and restaurants.

When family members are with me, however, I'm obliged to show them a good time. And so it was that we drove to the North Shore last Tuesday, though everyone had been there last year.

We stopped for shaved ice in Haleiwa and a shrimp plate in Kahuku. The drive around the island is slow, because more than half the distance consists of a single-lane road. We got home that evening.

I did enjoy the break more than I had expected and was highly productive the next day. Sometimes it's best to stop and smell the hibiscus.

I'm Outta Here

We live in the supposedly temperate San Francisco Bay Area, but this cold snap is quite uncomfortable.

I could tolerate the close-to-freezing temperatures years ago, but aging has slowed metabolism, and a little weight loss, which is normally beneficial, has reduced the body's insulation.

Tomorrow I'll be headed back to the Islands, where the most layering I'll need is the occasional light jacket.

The furnace here will be turned off. The natural gas savings alone will subsidize a third of the airfare.

Aloha!