Love In The Wild West

Chapter 2

As she and her best friend Louise got on the bus that would take them to the remote location the ranch was situated in, Lila felt a pang of excitement, a kind of passion that she had never felt before. She could not believe that she was finally going to spend time at a real ranch, the kind of place that she had been dreaming about since she had started dreaming in the first place.

“I can not wait!” said Lila. “This is so exciting. I can not thank you enough for doing this, Louise.”

“Oh please,” said Louise with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “There is no need to thank me. I mean, have I ever thanked you? No, and you have never wanted me to thank you either. So keep all of that gratitude to yourself, missy, you have done more for me than anyone else in my life and you deserve to let go just as much as the next person. Just relax and enjoy yourself!”

“I wonder what the ranch is going to be like,” said Lila, looking out the window at the terrain that was progressively getting less urban and gradually rougher and wilder.

“I have no idea,” said Louise, “I have never been to a ranch before, nor have I obsessively researched the subject the way you have. I have seen pictures of the ranch that we are going to right now, though. It seems like an excellent place, well worth the price of staying there. I think we are going to have a great time there.”

“I hope we do,” said Lila. “I mean, I know that I am going to have a great time there but I am not sure about you.”

“What do you mean?” asked Louise.

Lila laughed and said, “Louise, you are a city girl born and bred. You have never even wanted to leave the city the way I have, you have been content living your life in that urban jungle that so many people call home. Me, on the other hand, I have always wanted to leave, I have always wanted to go to a ranch. Hell, I have always wanted to live on a ranch. So I can be sure that I am going to have a great time at this ranch but you, a city girl with no intention of ever leaving the city, I can not be so sure about.”

Louise chuckled and said, “I am a city girl, are I not? But I think I will have a good time at this place. There are a lot of different activities that people can take part in, and they all looked like a lot of fun to me.”

“I can not wait to round up cattle,” said Lila. “I mean, this is a ranch right? They are probably going to have ranch related activities like this.”

“I think they will,” said Louise. “I mean, why else call it a ranch right? They do have a swimming pool, though, and a sauna and a spa. They have fancy restaurants as well, along with a little bar that also serves as a night club.”

“Really?” asked Lila, frowning and turning to face her friend. “At a ranch? That is odd.”

“They probably just want to cater to a broader audience,” said Louise. “I mean, there are not a lot of people like you, Lila. There are not a lot of people that would want to go to a ranch and do actual cowboy stuff. Some people, in fact most people, would just want to go there to unwind and forget the things that give them so much stress. I am one of those people, you know. But I think all of these things are going to be bonuses, as it were, they are going to be extra so that people that are not really into the whole cowboy deal can have a good time as well.”

“Why would people that are not into the whole cowboy deal go to a ranch in the first place is what I am wondering,” said Lila.

“Maybe they like the idea of it,” said Louise. “They might just want to unwind in a cowboy themed location.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” said Lila, resuming her examination of the world outside her window. They were completely outside the city, and though the bus was air conditioned Lila could tell that things were pretty hot out there. She could just imagine cowboys out here with the iconic hats sitting astride rough and ready horses that would help them get the job done. This was real life according to Lila. This was the way every single person in the world should live, and she sorely hoped that she would be able to live life like this one day. It was not an odd thing to want, she just wanted to be free from the trappings of capitalism, of the system that forced people to earn money doing things that they hated, remaining completely divorced from the real world that was full of nature and all of its wonders.

She could not stop imagining the ranch. She had pictured so many different things, so many different ways in which the ranch could be built. She had been studying ranches since she was a child, so she knew that there were only so many different types of ranches that could be built. No matter what type of ranch it would be, Lila was pretty sure that she would love it.

However, when they started to approach the ranch she started to become a little uncertain. It looked like a ranch, but there were also many things that made it look different as well. Firstly, it was far too big to be a normal ranch. That confused Lila for a bit, but then she realized that it was also a hotel so they needed space to accommodate all of their guests. She was sure that when they entered the ranch they would understand how everything worked over there.

The closer they got to the ranch, the more Lila started to doubt the authenticity of this place. Was there really anything worth doing here? It looked far too fancy to be an ordinary ranch but Lila decided that she would wait until she saw the inside of the place before giving her final verdict. After all, it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover. That is what people do when they do not understand just how important the inner workings of a place are, and Lila was certainly aware of how important such things could be.

“Looks like we are here!” said Louise excitedly when the bus creaked to a halt. There were about fifty people in the bus, each of them carrying a significant amount of luggage, so there was a lot of weight in the bus.

Once they got off, Lila saw something that excited her quite a bit. “Horses!” she exclaimed, leaving Louise behind and running to catch a glimpse of the beauties. However, when she got closer she realized that these horses were not exactly the types of horses that she was used to seeing in the pictures of the ranches that she had seen all her life.