VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) is the website for finding a place to stay anywhere in the world, including but not limited to the Callicoon area.

This week I have been staying with four of my high school friends in an absolutely lovely VRBO home across the river from Callicoon.

I must say that whoever thought of VRBO was a genius. In Sullivan County, since many of the ‘big hotels' have closed, there has been a dearth of overnight accommodations.

I remember once Mom had us all staying in what I believe was an old summer camp dormitory outside Fosterdale. At least it had that nice mildew-y smell of a summer camp. The rooms were spartan, to put it delicately.

Now, with the advent of the internet and the demise of boarding houses, VRBO has filled a very real need for rooms in the country, and I'm sure that many area folks are making a decent living renting out their properties.

This place is a real gem. It sits atop a hill in Pennsylvania with views down to the valley. It also has a heated in-ground pool. The house is immaculate, with five bedrooms, two brand new bathrooms, and an attached cottage.

We gals like to get together from time to time to reminisce about our days at Delaware Valley Central School as well as to catch up on our lives in the many years since we sat in geometry class together “high above the rippling waters of the Delaware.”

We are having a grand time, sitting on the back deck in the afternoon, the front porch in the morning, talking (and singing) nonstop. We always have a lot of catching up to do. We look at photos of our high school days and remember stories we hadn't thought about for years.

Yesterday a few of us took a tour of Callicoon, with a drive up River Road. River Road was always great, and there are so many more lovely homes there now than there were when we were kids. We also drove up to the Long Eddy cemetery to visit the grave of our delightfully creative friend and classmate Richard Björklund, whom we all loved dearly and whose death in 1987 came way too soon.

We may go to bed earlier and get up later than we used to, but that is just fine with all of us. We are all partying to the best of our abilities.

We agree that though we have roamed, there is no valley any prettier than the Delaware River Valley and no river towns nicer than those along its banks. My friends and I consider ourselves blessed to have grown up here and making our pilgrimage back home is very therapeutic.

KATHY WERNER is a three-time National Newspaper Association Award winner for the Democrat, and a true member of the family.