Traveling always seems to bring out the most beautiful aspects of the world. Wednesday morning was when I set out from Seattle for San Diego on a flight that left at 6:15 am. As we took off, everything was pitch black. The plane ascended and the lights below became a collage of light against dark. Long winding highways became a dotted worm of headlights, crawling through the static patterns of the buildings. Eventually the lights gave way to a pure black, flying above the ocean. It was the first time I had witnessed a sunrise from above the clouds. The first sign was a thin line of blue on the horizon. Not orange or yellow, but the midnight blue of a sky transitioning into day. The gradient grew larger as a layer of clouds began to flow below like a silken ocean. The sky grew lighter until the clouds below were the color of water. And then the most beautiful image hit me: A small break in the layer of clouds revealed the most pure shade of dark orange I had ever seen, bursting through in a fountain of color that lined the silver clouds in gold. In the wake of what occurred later, unbeknownst to any of us, the day began as picturesque as one of Keith Parkinson's immortal paintings, framed for me in the small window of an airplane.