The Sun Also Rises – Twice

Couple of weeks ago I was driving Millie to work at the crack of dawn. Literally. That's the whole point of the story. We left the house before sunrise.

She works at a patisserie near Sunny Isle and once a week has to open, so since we only have the one car, once a week I have to get up damn early and drive her to work.

So anyway, we're driving down the highway when it happened. We saw the sun rise twice. Absolutely true.

It's easier to visualize than to explain, ut ll do my best. We were near the end of the highway, it rolls up and down the feet of a couple of hills. In the near distance there was another hill certainly not a mountain, I'm guessing a coupe of hundred feet high at most. It was less than two miles away. And the stretch of road we were on was shorter by maybe a hundred feet, maybe less. Got it more or less in your head? I'm probably explaining this badly. Sorry.

At 5:48 a.m. we approached the end of the highway, the highest point of the trip. The hill ahead was still taller than where we were, but not by much. And as we neared the top, the sun rose over the hill. I noticed because we were driving due east and it burned a hole in my eyeballs.

Then we topped the rise and started down, and as we descended I could see again because the sun dropped back down behind the hill. Or the relative position of the hill, our car and the sun put the hill between us.

Moments later we drove up the gentle grade to the traffic light at Sunny Isles (some of the worst traffic on the island at midday, hardly any at 6 a.m.) And as we climbed – and as the earth spun, of course – the sun popped back up over the hill.

Tried to repeat the experience, but we mistimed once and got there too soon, and there were clouds the other. But I'm going to keep trying, because that was pretty cool.

My first day with two sunrises.