Gebhard and I had an awesome time performing in Switzerland! I spoke to quite a few people in the audience after our concert in Zürich and met someone from Le Locle, which is the tiny village in the French part of Switzerland where my great-grandfather was from. My great-grandparents were Swiss and immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island in NYC. There is a book/family tree with the names of all of my DuBois ancestors in Switzerland going back to the 1500s (I believe the book even goes back to the 1400s when my family was all in the south of France!) so it was very cool for me to be able to speak with a local about this rural area of Switzerland where I have deep roots.
I took a day trip today with my dear-old Swiss friend for 28 years, Marc Burger, to Lauterbrunnen/Wengen where I took this photo. Switzerland is an incredible and stunningly beautiful place… In honor of Beethoven’s 253rd Birthday today, here’s a video taken by Scott “Of the Woods” (that’s what DuBois means in French) driving up his very long (~0.4mi / ~0.64km), steep and rugged dirt/gravel driveway way up in the North Woods of northern Michigan.
Most of this long driveway is owned by the National Park Service but I have an ingress/egress easement on it to access my land and home at the top of this little “mountain.” It can be a serious challenge, especially in the heavy winters up north, but totally worth it to live in this incredibly inspiring and wonderfully wild and beautiful place. Thankfully my car is a beast and has been victorious against the driveway (so far)… I took this video this past summer while driving up my drive and Beethoven Symphony No. 5 just happened to be playing on the classical music radio station I listen to often. Beethoven’s Spirit must’ve followed me back home from his grave which I visited while on tour in Austria last year (I wouldn’t be surprised as it’s a very mystical place here)… Happy Birthday, Ludwig! A photo I just took of my backyard up in northern Michigan, which is the entrance to a very large forest. Amazing wildlife roaming there…some you want to meet while exploring, some you don’t ;-) but all fascinating and beautiful…
A gorgeous day today up north in Michigan. The weather and light change so fast here it’s amazing. Super inspiring. Time to write some music…
I spent this past week roaming through the beautiful wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, from the northern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, down through the Porcupine Mountains, through the middle-of-nowhere forests in between, over to the Pictured Rocks along the coast of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the world. Incredible nature and wildlife Up North. I even got to hang out with this very cool bald eagle who was perched in a tree about 20 feet away from me in the forest along the coast. We both hung out and listened to the Lake Superior waves for about two hours...
Here are some photos I took last week on the first of a few trips I’ll be taking up to northern Michigan this summer. Some incredible landscapes up north...
I took this photo up in northern Michigan, where I spent quite a bit of time last year. Lake Michigan has always seemed much more like a sea to me. The water colors up north often resemble the Caribbean Sea and the waves can be very intense, reaching over 20 feet (6 meters) high at times. (There are over 6000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, around 1500 on the bottom of Lake Michigan alone.)
I’m headed to a cabin further up north this summer to check out the moose, elk, the Aurora Borealis, and maybe hear some wolf calls (hopefully from a distance ;-) Some photos from while I was in northwest Michigan last week, standing on top of the incredibly beautiful sand dunes which rise up to 450 feet (137 meters) above Lake Michigan. What a wonderful place...
I've been roaming through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, exploring some amazing landscapes and wildlife...
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