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 and 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
2 COMMENTS
Anonymous said...
Omg...we share the same wonderful memories...we spent all my childhood summer vacations at Riveredge....great place, miss those days!!! Thanks for sharing...
January 22, 2014 at 3:50 PM
Anonymous said...
I went there as a child also. I remember when Elvis died we went there that weekend and that was all the adults were talking about!!Inwas 7 and lived every minute of everyday spent there! They just don’t have places like that anymore.
June 24, 2018 at 7:41 PM
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