alaska's down to one dq

And it happened fast, with barely any heads-up for regulars.

If your summer routine included a Blizzard run, you might have rolled up this week to a locked door. Several Dairy Queens around Alaska have quietly shut their doors.

The one on Tudor Road in Anchorage already has its signs stripped off and closure notices taped up. The other Anchorage shop and the Wasilla location went dark right alongside it.

That leaves exactly one Dairy Queen still scooping in the entire state, and it's all the way down on the Kenai Peninsula. So for anybody in Anchorage or the Valley, the nearest soft serve just got a whole lot farther away.

For a lot of us, DQ was the after-the-game stop, the road-trip treat, the thing you promised the kids if they behaved all afternoon. Losing three of them at once is a real dent in the summer routine.

The Valley just lost its only one, so that little treat run turns into a serious drive now. It's the kind of place you don't think about until the lights are off and the sign is gone.

And here's the part that's got everyone talking. Nobody has said why. No statement, no farewell post, they just closed up and left the rest of us guessing.