Florida’s Gulf Coast
Along Scenic Highway 30-A on Northwest Florida’s coast, there are just as many moments to witness nature’s wonders as there are moments in the day. But two events each day tend to stand out for locals and visitors alike as the sun rises and falls over the shimmering Gulf of Mexico. A sunrise viewed from a balcony with a steaming cup of coffee in hand is a glorious thing. Likewise, a sunset enjoyed from the beach with a glass of crisp white wine or seen from a pier or boat is a great way to end a day with friends. Both spectacles offer a chance to slow down, take a deep breath, and remember that there will always be beauty in the world.
I find it incredibly amazing how at every sunset, the sky is a different shade. No cloud is ever in the same place. Each day is a new masterpiece. A new wonder. A new memory.
—Sanober Khan
This is my favorite time of day. When the sun is setting and the last of its fiery fingers caress the water line before relinquishing their hold to the darkness of night. And I can watch as the stars pop out, one by one, to pinprick the sky with their silvery light.
—J.A. Souders, Revelations
A large red drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone … And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon . . .
—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.
—Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense
The beautiful affair of sun, sky and the sea brings a perfect moment of love, peace and joy.
—Umair Siddiqui
Dusk . . . is just an illusion, because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are; there cannot be one without the other, yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel, I remember wondering, to be always together, yet forever apart?
—Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
And yet day and night meet fleetingly at twilight and dawn. And their merging sometimes affords the beholder the most enchanted moments of all the twenty-four hours. A sunrise or a sunset can be ablaze with brilliance and arouse all the passion, all the yearning, in the soul of the beholder.
—Mary Balogh, A Summer to Remember
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