Atwell Hill Turnpike
It's really a swamp in places. The sign reads: Atwell Hill Turnpike Toll Road Appropriate Dress Required. Go Slow (Thru Hikers).
A little further along, I'm on trail and I hear an engine. A few minutes later, some ATV rider is bounding up the A.T. Jerk. I get off trail and he blasts by.
I keep hiking on. A half mile later, I hear something trotting behind me. I turn around, nothing there. I keep walking and start to cross under some power lines. Off to my right, I see something about thirty meters away padding through the clearing and scrub grass. I don't know what I saw. It looked a bit like a yellow lab, but it didn't have a dog head -- kind of compressed. No muzzle. But large, like a full-grown lab. Sierra-sized. But tan coat. And a long tail. A wavy tail, like a lazy S. None of this makes sense, but I have in my mind's eye -- even as I write this -- a split second snapshot of something I'm not sure I know how to describe.
In college, my girlfriend bought me 'Cry of the Panther', a story about a Vietnam vet and his explorations of the Everglades. Do memories of books I read a decade earlier color my mind here? There's no way I saw a big cat, during the day, stalking me or parallel-tracking or whatever, up here in N.H. off of the A.T. Did I? It was a big dog. With the wrong head. And it's the tail that bugs me. My mind sees the clearing, the power lines, the high overcast sky. The, the animal.
I start working my way along trail to drop down to NH 25. I have miles to go to Glencliff.