Dairy Queen, Atkins, VA
Breeze (standing), High Spirits, DreamCatcher, DNA (l-r). Photo by the Visitor.
So Thunderchicken and I had cruised out of the Mt. Rogers visitors center. We had passed some young local boys who insisted at USFS 86 that mountain tigers lived in the area (weren't we scared of mountain tigers?). Lunched at Glade Mtn. Shelter (no mountain tigers yet).
We had walked alone and together, cruising through the ups and downs, pastures, creek crossings, passing friends taking it a bit more leisurely in the beautiful weather, hopping across forest roads, under disturbingly buzzing HT power lines and descended from a grassy hill down onto Rt 11 and the Dairy Queen at it's junction with I-81.
Time for threes-es (Hobbit/Tolkien fans would delight in the frequency in which we ate, and the quantity). So we ordered and ate. And somehow, in our crazy speed-groove hiking, T-chicken and I had passed a LOT of hikers. We look out the window past the gas pumps and along comes the Visitor, DreamCatcher, High Spirits, Breeze and Sleddog. I had done a 21 into the ranger station last night to poise for the D.C./H.S. ambush - and we'd pulled nearly twelve so far, only to get it backwards. They caught us instead. Time for another snack.