Good Morning Sunshine

Two night's ago, with time racing away from us while we sat curbside face planted in 3 of the biggest cocktail glasses I've ever seen, a plan started to formulate with me as the sober driver at the healm. I got about an inch into my drink and called it quits.


When we finally found an open parking garage in South Beach, the valet, in broken-English, said "5am? That's OK?" "Of Course! We won't probably be out past 3," we all said in unison. Little did we know.



It was 3:30 and we still had 2 shots and 1 large drink to go...literally to-go. It was 4am before we found our way to the water, and that left us just an hour to wander back and find the car at 5am. At 4:22, ankle deep in the Atlantic, it was a beautiful 77*, but it was time to get 4 drunk legs to find a way to follow my 2 sober ones back across quite a few blocks and alley ways to the parking lot.



With another 35 miles back to the hotel, it occured to me that the sun was coming up soon and it had been far too long since I sat back and enjoyed that sight early in the morning. Not to mention that I was going to be watching the sunrise on the East Coast after a great night out with one of my oldest friends and one of my newest friends.

The real bait was getting the drunk monkeys to stay out with me and the 4-some that the sunrise would make. Never fear, Dunkin' Donuts is here. Half a dozen later and 3 cups of coffee, we were wandering down the sand dunes to the surf.



I must have taken 150 pictures of the sun rising up above the water and splitting through the clouds...I couldn't put the camera down. It was like an early morning Sunday Sermon standing there caught up in the cresting of the waves and the orange glow on the blue water. You just can't miss moments like this.






Just about 4 hours later, I found myself watching the sun from 40,000 feet in the air thinking, "I saw this thing come out of the ocean and now I'm gonna follow it home and watch it set in my sky." I was literally racing the sunlight.

I've seen plenty of sunrises in my late night professional and social schedule, but there are a few that really stand out. This is definitely one of them.