On Cloud Nine — Maui, Hawaii

Nine days into our adventure around the world, and the world has been good to us. Even though this journey may only be a year, only 52 weeks removed from the monotonous cube life, only 52 Mondays that I don't wake up dreading, for a brief stint in Hawaii, the feeling felt endless; as if I were weightless above the clouds.

While in Maui, we were fortunate enough to catch a sunrise atop the 10,000+ foot volcano, Haleakala. Interestingly and most often enough, the end result (in this case this picture) is merely half the story. Sure, the picture might capture a gorgeous sunrise with the sun perched perfectly on a bed of clouds illuminating the dim sky and everything that it touches in sight, but beyond that shallow face, there are a host of other things not captured in this picture. It doesn't show the 2am wake up call sleeping only a handful of hours; it doesn't show the freezing cold bus ride up the mountain followed by the blistering wind while getting to our battle station (3 feet of shared rail space with the other hundreds of bumbling tourists) an hour and a half before the sun ever rose, and finally it doesn't show the bike ride down the mountain in torrential downpour. But all these external occurrences might make it sound like it was a negative experience, but in fact, it's quite the opposite. Looking back at this day, it's all those little moments (funny, sad, exhausting, breath-taking, freezing) that are the parts of the day that I'll remember forever. Those are the reasons we do anything; it's for the journey, not the destination. I'll end it with a quote from my travel compadre and long-time steemit member, @jawdy, "the pictures I show and the stories I tell won't match up at all and that's a beautiful thing." He might not have said "that's a beautiful thing" but who knows, we were drunk when he said it and I thought it sounded better.

Kevblack

Follow Our Adventures👇🏼
UI Website: http://uniqueimpressionsgroup.com/
UI Steemit Accounts: @jawdy @lck @uigroup
UI Instagram Accounts: @uniqueimpressionsgroup | @kevinblackburne | @jawdlevine | @lckasuya | @mrbotatohead

Also, amazon link to book written by @jawdy "Welcome to the F*cking Show: Bitcoin and Your Future With Money." I highly recommend to any friends who are interested in breaking into the crypto game:

https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-cking-Show-Bitcoin-Future-ebook/dp/B0741LPVB2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500698755&sr=8-1&keywords=bitcoin+and+your+future+with+money