We met at a friend's birthday party at a cabin in the woods near Corvallis. After a fun night around the campfire listening to records and drinking whiskey, Matt asked Emily for a ride back to Eugene the next day and we spent the car ride home bonding over our shared love of Tame Impala.

When Emily's mom moved to Oregon in 1999, she first lived in McKenzie Bridge until 2005. Emily and her sister visited their mom from North Carolina every summer during some of their most formative and angsty years. Cut off from socializing with their friends and other fun teenage pastimes, typical summer activities included homesteading, biking, walking to the general store for ice cream and twiddling their thumbs by the McKenzie River. Now each summer you'll find us hiking, camping, and rafting with friends along the McKenzie corridor. Like many Eugenians, this area holds a special place in our hearts.

From our venue's website: For 8,000 years prior to exploration by Europeans, this gorgeous area was home to the Kalapuya and Molalla peoples, who spent their summers in the high Cascades and their winters in the Willamette Valley. In fact, much of the river was largely unknown to western explorers until October 1853, when a group of Oregon Trail settlers became lost trying to cross the Cascades into the Willamette Valley via the Elliot Cutoff. Not long afterward they discovered the river named for an early fur trader, Donald McKenzie. In 1887, during the land rush of the Northwest, a claim was made for land that included the 14 acre property that would become Loloma Lodge. In 1928, the log cabin was constructed along with three out buildings–the Peeling Barn where the logs for the buildings were peeled and prepared (which is now our outdoor stage), the Carriage House where the owners parked and worked on their carriages (which is now the lounge), and a small one room living quarter (which is now the office).