Friday Travel Ticker: Hotel Bel-Air is back

The 103-room Hotel Bel-Air reopens its doors Friday after a two-year redesign. The inn blends its former Spanish Colonial architecture with elegant new themes. Its signature oval swimming pool and swans remain . . . . Prime polar bear viewing season is beginning in Churchill, Canada, where the animals gather to cross Hudson Bay in their fall search for food . . . . As of this weekend, three Colorado ski resorts will be open: Arapahoe Basin, Loveland and Wolf Creek. . . . Dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial takes place Sunday, in West Potomac Park near the National Mall. The celebration is free and open to the public. . . . Surf like Santa and raise money for children with autism at the Nov. 19 at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. The Surfing Santa Competition features a $1,000 prize for the Flying Rudolph Big Air category. Entry fee is $40. . . . See San Francisco’s waterfront lighted up for the holidays with twilight cruise packages from Red and White Fleet. The two-hour tours run Nov. 10-Dec 31. Tickets are $54 for adults and $36 for ages 5 to 17. Children under 5 are free. For details, click here, www.redandwhite.com or call (415) 673-2900. . . . Gestures range from the seductive to the highly insulting in Romana Lefevre’s “Rude Hand Gestures of the World,” a new paperback priced at $10. . . . Animal Planet will show a two-hour Halloween special Oct. 30 on the Bigfoot legends of Willow Creek, Calif. . . . Travel Quote of the Day: “Nothing is too good to be true, nothing is too good to last, nothing is too wonderful to happen.” (Florence Scoville Shinn)