Oregon in August

Well, our summer has come to a nice end and we decided to celebrate with another trip up to Oregon to enjoy the serenity, the nice weather, and the endless list of things to accomplish while we are there.


Since I, Christopher, have recently finished my studies at UC Santa Barbara and am currently on the market for a job, my parents have elected me to write the next installment of the ever-long saga of Mountain Man Olin, his beautiful, blonde chef/accountant/manager/interior designer wife and their Olin The Woods.

Our two week stint to McKenzie Bridge was a great conclusion to a great summer. We accomplished a lot, had time to enjoy Labor Day weekend and visited with neighbors on the river. In addition to this we also enjoyed perfect weather every single day we were away from Burbank. Unfortunately Southern California had the pleasure of enduring a heat wave that reached temperatures of 112 F. We felt badly knowing heat like that probably made a lot of Angelenos uncomfortable (including students and teachers returning to the classroom where air-conditioning is not always available), but we also were glad we skipped out on it in exchange for more shade and clean oxygen.



The house is coming along quite nicely. Dad and I have now finished putting up the yellow cedar ceiling in the loft and nearly all of the great room. This includes all moulding and finish work and we only have about a third more to do before we move on to other things.







Despite the some times cramped and awkward work areas and height, rickety scaffolding, putting up the ceiling has been both a challenge and a rewarding experience. Our neighbor, Ray, came over a few times to help us out by cutting ceiling boards. Mom either had good things to say or yelled words of caution at us whenever we would perform tricky, unsafe maneuvers twenty feet up.

Mom working on the
Roman shades.

Dad and I putting up ceiling over the loft.

Labor Day was spent on the coast of Oregon on Ten Mile Lake, just north of Coos Bay.

Every year the Coos Bay yacht club has a Labor Day regatta. Since the majority of the Geary-18 fleet are members of this club we thought dropping by for the weekend to get some R and R was in order. We were in luck! Flattie sailor, George Cardas, loaned us his boat, otherwise known as Furious II, for the weekend so that Dad and I could race in the regatta. The weather and winds were excellent and, despite a few hang ups here and there, we raced a great regatta. Mom also enjoyed the weekend spending her time walking, relaxing on the beach and visiting with friends. She even scored the recipe for the yacht club's dynamite grilled salmon dinner that they put on every summer; it is arguably one of the best salmon dinners I've ever had.


We returned to the river for another week before driving back to Los Angeles on September 6. In that time were able to finish what we wanted with the ceiling and prepare the house for our next trip up - presumably near the end of October!

More shots of the ceiling - this one looking out from the loft onto the great room.

Ceiling over loft near master suite and stair case.

From the kitchen/dinning area looking across great room.

Thank you for checking in with our on-going progress! If you are interested in viewing more pictures of our last two weeks you can check them our HERE.