This is John Batchel, a conversation with my colleague Jeff Bliss, his Pacific watch, about Maui.

You recall the fire that swept the beachfront and left the whole place looking like a ruin.

Well, it's some years later, and a drone flight over the beachfront, all these really wonderful waves lapping in from the Pacific,

shows nothing rebuilt much to see. There's a structure, but nothing inside, dust, up and down

this road that runs across the beachfront. Jeff explains why. Hawaii, much ahead of the

Palisades, except for it looks the same. Burnout Hawaii, Maui, Burnout Palisades, California.

Here's Jeff, much more of this later. About the Palisades, too.

Pennsylvania, Porter County, a lovely place.

We went to dinner at the journeyman distillery, which has a Union Hall restaurant.

It's a magnificent facility.

It's in a factory that was built right after the Civil War as a woolen mill and underwent a $40 million renovation.

I talked to the manager.

On the weekend, all 160 tables were filled with people waiting.

But he told me, in general, businesses are 3 to 5 percent this year versus last year as people are much more careful

with their spending. Let me add that when I got the bill, there was a dollar fee for historic

renovations or preservation, historic preservation. I don't think I've ever been into a restaurant