One local photographer couldn't sleep the other night, so they did what any reasonable person would do — drove up from Santa Cruz in the pre-dawn dark to catch the sun coming up over the city. And by all accounts, it absolutely delivered.

Look, we spend a lot of time in this space talking about what's broken in San Francisco. The budget bloat, the transit delays, the bureaucratic maze of getting literally anything done. That's our job. But every now and then it's worth remembering why people put up with $3,500 studio apartments and $7 coffees in the first place.

The Golden Gate Bridge at dawn. The fog rolling back like a curtain. That particular shade of orange-pink light that bounces off the Bay and makes even the Salesforce Tower look poetic. This is the stuff that no amount of government mismanagement can ruin — though, give them time.

There's a lesson buried in here somewhere about the best things in San Francisco being the ones the city didn't build and can't regulate. The views, the natural beauty, the geography that makes this seven-by-seven-mile peninsula one of the most photographed places on Earth — all of it exists despite City Hall, not because of it.

So if you're up at 5 AM doom-scrolling the latest city budget report or reading about another failed initiative, maybe put the phone down, grab a jacket, and head to Baker Beach or the Marin Headlands instead. The sunrise is free, it's reliable, and unlike most city services, it shows up on time.

Some things in this town still work exactly as they should. The sun is one of them.