This was not an experience she was likely going to be able to repeat any time soon—unless she won the lottery—and Cimmy was determined to make the most of it. This was her chance to open herself up to everything the town had to offer. Having just graduated from medical school, she knew she was going to be paying off those student loans well into her dotage. She'd never known what had triggered her interest in this area and time period, but it had been with her ever since she could remember. She'd seen every western she could get her hands on, most of John Wayne's movies five or more times, easily, even the Irish one her mother had favored.
The color rose in her cheeks as she admitted to herself that the Wayne films which involved him spanking the heroine she'd seen quite a few more times than the others—at least, those particular bits, anyway. They were the first ones she'd actually bought. But that particular aspect wasn't something she was willing to dwell on when thinking about her obsession with the era.
It wasn't solely John Wayne. In the old west, men were men, and tended to take what they wanted and made no excuse for it. A woman in this era would be expected to be submissive to her man. Oh no. That wasn't the reason for her interest at all, she told herself—as well as anyone else who brought it up. She just liked the idea of living in a time with fewer gadgets—which she detested. A time when life was simpler and slower and not dictated by the clock or the incessant pinging of one's iPhone, laptop, desktop, or tablet. She had a cell phone, but it was the cheapest, most basic one she could get. She didn't even think it could text, and although she always kept it charged and in her pocketbook for emergencies, she only turned it on when she was driving a long distance. Heck, she was so averse to the thing on general principle that she'd never even bothered to set up the voice mail on it.
As Cimmy passed the livery, she was heartened to see a corral full of horses behind it and longed to stop and make their acquaintance. But she also didn't want to miss any of the activities that were being offered by the hotel. So she continued on past them, promising herself that she'd stop by at another time to pat some muzzles and maybe bring some carrots or apples as treats, and she sincerely hoped she'd be able to find the time to do so. Although it was in the middle of nowhere, the Granville had plenty for its guests to do. Some of the offerings leaned more towards what might be considered 'dude ranchish'—campfires and sing-alongs—but it also offered informative lectures and a living history version of what the town might have been like, with its historical reenactors portraying merchants and townspeople of the time.
There were candle making classes, and carpenters not only selling wares they'd made by hand with only the tools of the era, but lessons available on how to do the same. There were also trail rides around the surrounding area, a real life cattle drive right through the middle of town that guests could assist with if they liked, and of course, lots of shopping. The mercantile displayed items for sale that would have been of interest to the lady of the house, a cowboy, or a prospector. There was a confectioner in the mercantile who made homemade candies, and the milliner sold the hats he made as the guests watched. There was even a class on how to pan for gold. Cimmy was much more interested in the lectures and seeing how people actually lived—or as close as one could get in the twenty-first century.
In the spirit of the trip, she had left her computer and her cell phone in her car, which was back in Settler's Bluff, despite her cousin's warning against doing so. But Cimmy was the first to admit that she was such an idiot when it came to technology—she could barely figure out how to answer a phone call—that she didn't want to suffer the embarrassment of having the blasted thing go off when she was supposed to be immersed in the atmosphere of the later nineteenth century.
She could have brought her laptop, she supposed, and the hotel—in a move which she thought was an unnecessary concession to today's Internet addicted guests—did offer free Wi-Fi. But she'd decided to eschew it, preferring to spend her time living as close to how she had wanted to all her life as she could.