"Get Thee to a Sunset!"

Whenever I've been traveling in a location that has a western coast it has been an unspoken rule that at day's end, I'll position myself somewhere so that I can watch the sunset.

Nicole and I made our way to the beach almost nightly to walk for miles along the beaches of Costa Rica, sometimes speeding dangerously down the highway so that we wouldn't miss that last sliver of light. We learned to time it -- about an inch in the sky was ten minutes. In South Africa, they call it "sundowners" and most often Mineska and I would view it from blankets with wine at Llandudno Beach. When my friends and I visited Sarah in San Diego we made a fire at Oceanside and illegally drank wine from coffee mugs. In Hawaii, every night without exception I and my friends made a plan as to where we would be watching the sunset. 

Sometimes orange. Sometimes pink. Sometimes blue and even white. Every night it's different. It never gets old. There's no sense whatever that you can skip it because you've "been there done that". 

Costa Rica

Maui

South Africa

San Diego

And the location doesn't have to be exotic. Even in Roosevelt, Minnesota, at the lodge where I worked we had rows of west-facing windows that overlooked gigantic Lake of the Woods. I'd stop running for a few moments to join our guests and watch the sun silently slip below the horizon.

Minnesota, 9:20pm

You know what though? I don't do sunsets in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's not even on my radar here. Perhaps because there are too many trees and buildings to block it? I don't know. But that stops now. 

In my quest for post-vacation-similar-to-New-Year's-resolution-self-betterment, I vow this summer to make sunsets part of my day. I won't even have to go far. Here's the view right out of my apartment window:

Minneapolis

NOT TOO SHABBY, EH?