We ended up making our way about 4 miles through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. If you've never seen this part of the country, just picture 200+ foot tall trees with a width of up to 60 feet around at the trunk! These trees were absolutely massive...the trail went over, under, and even through some of them. We obviously took advantage of our surroundings and tried to take the most ridiculous pictures we could. For our stay in Eureka, I was hosted with Maria from Sweden,
Benjamine from Belgium, and Gabe from Tucson. We stayed with the Fraga Family, who had 3 teenage kids living at home. On Tuesday, we had Community Impact in Eureka. Our cast was involved with many projects, including; working with rehabilitation patients, helping out around an elderly home, city beautification, and a redwood park cleanup. I was apart of a group that did admissions work as well as a BTS (Backing Track Show) at Eureka High School. 
That afternoon, we did an education workshop on the topic of "values." We broke up into our home team groups (small groups) of around 8 people and had a "values auction." Each person had a sheet of paper with different options on it, such as...1. Having a loving spouse 2. Being physically attractive 3. Being famous 4. Having total financial security 5. Peace in your Country...etc. We had a $1000 budget for the activity, and had to allocate all the money into the 15 or so options on the sheet. We then had an auction in our group where the highest bidder would win the option. Some items went for the full budget of $1000, while others went for under $50. It made us think about our own personal values and which are really important to us. Because of our short stay, Wednesday was our show day in Eureka. We performed at a beautiful venue that was an old restored theater with around 800 seats. I think it may have been our strongest show to date. The audience wasn't huge, but the energy was so high and our music and dancing felt really strong.
On Thursday we traveled to Coos Bay, Oregon, with a long stop at the beautiful Oregon coast in Bandon.
Northern California and Oregon have some absolutely incredible coastlines with endless cliffs, caves, and massive rocks coming up out of the water. In Bandon, we found some sea caves that we explored, and some of the guys battled one another with massive seaweed tentacles that looked like whips. 
Upon arrival in Coos Bay, I was excited to see that my host family allocation was smaller than normal for our short stay...I figured it would be more relaxing. Our host parents were Cheryl and Eric, who had 2 kids...Abby in 5th grade, and Scott in 3rd. They were such a fun family with a great house in the forest above downtown Coos Bay. Stephan from Germany and 
I were staying together in what we like to refer to as , "The Bachelor Pad." It was a very small, but quaint, trailer that was located 
outside our host family’s garage. On Friday, part of the cast went and did a beach cleanup/regional learning activity on the coast. I unfortunately had to be apart of the setup crew at the theater. Our venue in Coos Bay was the famous Egyptian theater built in the early 1900's. It was a tough venue because of stage size and awkwardness. In the old days, stages used to be sloped from back to front...well this stage was so old that it has started to slope the opposite direction. Not easy to dance on! That night after setup, 
Stephan and I went with our host family to Sunset Bay where we sat up on the cliffside and watched hundreds of seals that gather each year on the ocean cliff sides. On Saturday we did 2 BTS's at a local festival going on in downtown Coos Bay to promote for our show. We than had a 2:00pm show followed by a 7:00pm show...our first double show day! It was a crazy long day, but what a fun experience. On Sunday, we departed for Portland, OR. It was a whirlwind week moving from place to place. It's tough to do these short 3 day trips because it doesn’t feel like we have enough time to experience the city. I'm exhausted, but it was an unforgettable week!
