Meeting people can be hard. It sounds crazy when you're younger - you think that you'll just...meet people all the time and it'll be easy. But that's not how it ends up happening as an adult. It's especially not how it happens for us because we don't like a lot of social-things: social drinks like beer, wine, coffee, or tea are all just gross to us, so we don't go to a lot of cafes or bars. Also there's been a pandemic so it's not as if we're going out to meet-up groups or anything like that. As such, we don't meet a lot of people.
We were told that we'd meet TONS of people on this adventure, which would make sense in campgrounds. However, we're mostly doing National Forest land and dispersed camping, so we're alone more often than not. So how do we meet people? In short, we rarely do.
But it turns out that when we meet people, we really meet some good ones.
We had only really interacted with a few people before Memorial Day (about 4 days into our adventure). We went out of our way at the Badlands to go meet someone's dog and then spoke with the human (and the dog) for about 20 minutes, and that was about it. But when Memorial Day came, we were in Rapid City, South Dakota. We were finishing up a 12(ish) mile bike ride when we took a small detour in a city park to see a piece of the Berlin Wall. Neither of us were experts on the Berlin Wall, and I expected to see a small chunk of concrete with a little bit of information nearby.
What we got was a full slab of wall - it was probably 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. Why Rapid City? I don't know. But that's not the point. The point is the people.
I read the info-boards and Jenna asked me to summarize them as she had been reading out of order and got confused.
Midway through my recap, a 75 year old woman arrived and began talking to us through a thick Polish accent. How do I know she was 75 and it was a Polish accent? Because she literally did not stop talking to us for about 35 minutes.
She started in with how she hates Memorial Day because it, in some ways, glorifies war and she hates war. (OK. We get it. We also dislike war.) Then she got into having emigrated to the US in the 1980s. Then she got into having traveled all over the US (OK. We're with you again here). Then she got into how much she loves dogs (Hard yes from us). Then she told us how her dog's name is Ufo, like UFO but one word, because she rescued him and nobody knew where he came from. Then she told us how morally bankrupt Donald Trump is (obviously yes). Then she told us how terrible the American diet is (agree again!). Then she told us about some places she loved in Europe (she's on a roll!). Then she told us about how she hates Memorial Day again.
Now, you might be reading this and thinking "well you guys agree on some stuff, this sounds like a nice conversation." But let me tell you something, my friends, this was not a conversation. This was a monologue. Anytime she said something that we could maybe chime in and agree with or expound on, we got maybe 2-3 words in and she was off and rolling again.
She told us about how she knew all of the police in town, how she had apparently gotten her purse stolen and needed a new license/credit card/social security card, and how she loves Montana. She told us about her husband farting in bed and blaming it on the dog, then the dog farting in bed and blaming it on the husband. She told us about how the land doesn't belong to white people or Lakota Sioux because the animals were here millions of years before them. She told us, again, how much she hated Memorial Day and war in general.
While it was delightful and sweet and funny, it did get a bit exhausting. At about the 20 minute mark we were trying to come up with an escape plan and having no luck. Some time in that 30-35 minute range she saw a man walking about 50 feet away with a small dog and she just about lost her mind. She started shouting and waving at the dog, telling it how much she loved it, how they should be friends, how the dog should come see her, etc.
The man was pretty confused, but reluctantly brought the dog over. It was our escape-window!
We mounted our bikes between greetings with the dog and thought we could be on our way while she was distracted...and we ALMOST made it. She asked where we were going next, where we might have lunch, what kind of car we were driving, and more.
But with our sights set back on Pegasus, we blew kisses, she told us she loved us, and she bid us farewell.
And we exhaled.
Of course, that was only the first time we met someone noteworthy in that span of 36 hours.
The very next night we stumbled on a wild-campsite just outside of Custer State Park in South Dakota. We were in the Black Hills National Forest and happened upon this weird little camping-nook and pulled in, thrilled with how close it was to the park. Jenna hung the hammock up on a hillside and I relaxed in the van. But then another van pulled in and parked next to us.
I was a little bothered at first. This was an area about 50 feet wide, but I assumed the people would be quiet/respectful and there would be no issue. I nodded hello as I joined Jenna on the hammock for an hour or so. As we swung and talked, I thought I heard voices speaking in German from the other van. Kinda fun.
As we returned for dinner, we greeted our neighbors, and Jenna promptly asked where they were from. Switzerland and Germany.
Switzerland and Germany! They're European! We love Europe! New best friends!
To summarize the evening, we spent about 4 hours talking with Max (German) and Karin (Swiss) about everything: van life, polite people in racist parts of the US, how fat Americans really are, how interesting it is that European culture changes over such short distances, surfing (they LOVE to surf, and judging by their Instagram pages and how often they do it, they seem to be quite good at it), and who should visit who in what country. But the most important thing was that they'd been in the US for 2 months in their campervan ("Marta" was inscribed on the side, though we didn't ask if it was pre-named or not) but had not yet had a campfire.
Done. Campfire.
While sitting around the campfire, it came out that neither of them had EVER had s'mores.
You may recall that a moment ago I mentioned how we'd spoken about how fat and unhealthy Americans can be, so of course we had to introduce them to a dessert where you take something that's 90% sugar and heat it up, then stick on top of something that's about 90% sugar, and eat it between two things that are about 40% sugar.
Say what you want about the calorie content, it was delicious. And they both loved s'mores. In response, Karin had us slice open a banana and fill it with chocolate, then wrap it in foil and put it on the fire. The name for it was not quite the translation of "chocolate banana," but I don't know how to spell it so it'll just stay in my head. They were delicious.
AdVANtures generally mean going to bed early and getting up early, as once the sun goes down there's not much left to do in your day. This has meant prepping for bed around 9:30 (very difficult for me - I'm a late person). But we had such a nice time with Karin and Max that we didn't get in bed until almost 11.
The next day we had a wonderful time passing each other in the park and waving like maniacs.
Anyway, the point of it all is that we met three people in two extremely different settings, and came away with two lovely memories of extremely different types. Hopefully we see two of them again, and the 3rd one...well...maybe not.
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