The two of us spent our first day in SD hiking around the Badlands, which was incredibly breathtaking, but definitely solidified my fear of heights. At the view from the top, you can see the national park for miles on end, but we were standing at least a couple of hundred feet in the air. By the end of the hike, I needed to find a chair on level ground.
We'd heard about a good bar and grill in a neighboring town. A beer and a burger after the hike we'd just had seemed to me like actual heaven on Earth, but the place itself was... an experience.
The building we pulled up to was a rectangular cabin with three kittens and an old dog chilling in the sandy parking lot out front. For a couple of tired, hungry, sweat-drenched twenty-somethings, it was perfect. We walked into the building (yes, wearing our masks) to find no one at the bar except the toughest, most cliche-looking biker dude I have ever seen. Worn out Levis with black leather chaps, a chain on his belt and another on his leather Harley Davidson vest, a cigarette in one hand, a Bud Light in the other, and a gray handlebar mustache drooping so low it grazed the half-eaten burger sitting on the counter in front of him.
The bar tender came in from the back door and greeted us. We each ordered a Budweiser, a burger with the works, and an order of onion rings before having a seat at the booth across from the biker.
After sitting down, I noticed the walls were covered floor to ceiling in wrinkled dollar bills, and a bison skull hung in the corner behind the pool table with at least four bras hanging from the horns. I had to stifle a laugh as I tried to imagine the story behind it.
Moments later, two pretty rough-looking biker chicks walked in, shouting and belly laughing and smelling like cigarettes. They seemed to already know both the man at the bar and the bartender, which was not surprising because they both walked right up to me and my boyfriend to strike up a conversation. One of them shoved a Tupperware in my hands, inviting us to try her newest recipe... pickled onions.
Oh, yum.
We did try a bite out of... I don't know... courtesy? Curiosity? They were actually better than I expected, but still tasted like crunchy vinegar. I, being the weak pushover that I am, thanked her and said it was delicious. She responded to this by bringing us TWO MORE Tupperwares of pickled onions. She stood next to us, making sure we were actually eating her onions and talking about her strategies for various recipes she's come up with. It was an interesting conversation, I will say that.
Her friend Donna came up to take over the conversation. She rolled from one topic to the other, talking so much I could barely get a word in until eventually she thanked us for trying her friend's onions. I told her I appreciated them, to which she responded by wrapping her arms around me in a huge hug and giving me one of her gold bangles so that I can "carry her vibe around with me" wherever I go.
While we were eating, there was a little boy walking around playing fetch with the dog and climbing on bar stools. Turns out, he was the bartender's son. As bizarre as it was to me, I understood that life is hard and babysitters can be so expensive, and good ones are hard to come by. He was the sweetest, silliest little kid, and a truly talented conversationalist.
My point in writing this, other than telling y'all a story about my weird experience at a biker bar of all places, is to say that I learned an important judgement lesson that day. Every single one of the people in that bar were friendly, sweet, kind, and free-spirited. They were good people, and I had judged them and initially made myself feel uncomfortable because of what they wore and who I thought they were.
This was one of the most memorable meals we had on our road trip, not because of the food, but because of the people. I'm going to hang on to that gold bangle that Donna gave me so I can remember her, the little boy, and everything about that odd little bar and grill.
Except the pickled onions. I want to forget those pickled onions.
