What do you do when it’s raining, raining, raining? When we took our trip to Charleston a few months ago, we went to watch the Dylan biopic that first day because of the weather, but there’s no movie theater in Jablonka. Where could you possibly go when you’re in a small village relatively far from any town?

Well, when there’s a break in the rain, you can take the dogs out for a walk. There’s always something to look at and to talk about with the Boy. So that’s exactly what we did this morning. The little suka that Babcia adopted some years ago (a poor pup clearly abused earlier in your life–she’s terrified of me and all men in general) got out of her collar and caused the Boy no bit of initial worry.

“She’ll follow us and make it back home,” I assured him.

We cut through the jarmark, which, by that time, was closing up.

“Almost nobody is there,” the Boy informed me when I finally dragged myself out of bed at nearly nine this morning, exhausted from waking to take K to the airport and then unable to fall back asleep at 4:30 when I got back to Wujek D’s house yesterday.

(K made it home safely: the animals are thrilled to have part of the family back home, but still wondering where in the world the rest of the family is.)

Finally, after lunch, we decided the best place to go was the outdoor train museum we seem to visit every visit lately. It was a little different this time: the Boy wasn’t as fascinated with every little thing like he was during our first visit, and the cold rain was a radical difference from the unbelievable heat we endured in 2022.

We talked about the fact that all this equipment was once new, modern, and cutting-edge. We entered an empty passenger wagon that had nothing but a wooden floor and rusted ceiling:

“Just think, son–at one point, someone climbed into this carriage and thought, ‘Wow! A new, modern car!’ And now, it’s difficult for us to imagine traveling like that, difficult to imagine the carriage as anything but an exhausted antique in a museum.”