Family bonding at Riveredge

Oh, how I do remember this lovely little home away from home. My family & I came from Milford, CT, just an hour or so from where we lived. Most people thought we were nuts to take a vacation so nearby. Little did they know how delightful it was to arrive not exhausted or fighting with the kids &/or spouse after miles & miles on the road, to be greeted by the friendly faces of Art & Olga Donnellan.

I first found the resort in an ad in the NY Times (when it was obviously much cheaper to advertise) and thought why not? We'd been to Mystic. How about a leisurely jaunt up I-95, skip over to Rte 9 & wend our way up to Moodus??

I sent a check to the resort well in advance of our arrival & on a lovely Saturday afternoon slowly drove our car (a 1969 Oldsmobile) along the gravely dirt road to the resort. We parked near the "office" (just a small room off the kitchen area, where we learned later that Olga would work her culinary magic) and proceeded to check in.

Olga looked & looked and could not find any evidence of our prepayment. But being the jolly, wonderful woman that she was, she said, "Don't worry. We have a nice little cabin available for you and your daughters!"

A young fellow named Mike led us to our accommodations and we were thrilled. A room for my husband & me, and another for our two girls, plus a sparkling clean bathroom, all just feet away from the Salmon River!

The next week consisted of three meals a day, pool games, river boat rides, tennis, archery, evening bonfires (with Art telling stories & serving up way too salty ears of corn), no TV, no radio. Our family actually bonded rather well.

Our first morning's breakfast was one of pancakes, French toast, bacon, sausage & toast, plus eggs over easy for my husband. He said that the eggs were too hard to cut. I looked at him with eyes somewhat squinty and said "What do you mean, you can't cut your eggs??? " I took a knife & tried sawing at the yolks myself. Nothing. We then saw several young folks in the kitchen laughing -- my husband had been given rubber eggs!! We knew then that Donnellans was our kind of place.

We went back for another year, this time booking a cabin right on the river. Our youngest daughter often went off by herself to a little area loaded with wildflowers and called it the "Lands of Love."

We truly miss the camaraderie, kindness and just good old fashioned family togetherness that we found at Donnellans.

--Holly Shore