When in southern Poland you look out and see not a single cloud in the sky, staying inside is simply a sin.

And with only a few days left of our Polish adventure, it’s even more critical to make the most out of each moment, to squeeze every single opportunity out of every single moment (not to mention every single mixed metaphor). This also means beginning the lasts — the last time seeing this or that friend, the last walk to the river, the last, the last. Always some kind of last.

Today, on the walk, I take some of the last opportunities for some shots of the two of them. For them, it was possibly a last chance to play in the water, to play with the puppy that lives along the way to the river, to play some jokes on each other.

On the way back, we find a common sight: a stork hunting in the fields.

“Quiet! Quiet!” I call to the girls behind me. “Up ahead there’s a stork.” We sneak up to watch the stork, but at the last minute, Kajtek, Babcia’s dog, spots the stork himself and gives chase.

It thrills the girls despite the fact that there’s no chance of watching the stork up close.

When we get back to the house, I jump into the car and head to a couple of locations I know to take a few landscape shots. After all, who could possibly pass up a virtually cloudless sky here? First stop — just over the border in Slovakia. The fields are different here: instead of the patchwork of small plots all with different owners growing different crops, with each owner probably owning half a dozen plots spread about the village, the Slovaks have consolidated their fields, resulting in huge fields of corn, wheat, potatoes, and other crops.

Returning, I stop at the start of Lipnica Mała to get a few shots of Babia Góra. In the end, neither location provides clear views of either the Tatra Mountains or Babia Góra: the air is still just a bit too thick, too heavy.

I head back to take the girls and Babcia to Orawskie Lato, a local folk festival that’s in its twenty-second year. We arrive just in time for the “Popisy Hajduków” contest. I doubt you can think of a dance that’s harder on the knees and more exhausting on the legs and lower back.

Afterward, while out with a friend at a nearby village, the skies clear and the mountains look close enough to touch from this distance.

As we head back to Jabłonka, clouds lightly cover the Tatras.

A good days of lasts — temporary lasts, that is.