I had the great opportunity to learn from and know more about a great friend of the EMC, John Cohn, over the past several years.  One of the stories John shared to us a while ago told touched our hearts.  In short, pulled from his website, this is the short story:

Sam was an exuberant boy with a 1000 watt smile. He loved his friends, family, dog, and bird deeply. Sam was passionate about guitar, snowboarding, lacrosse, and having fun. Yes, having fun was important to Sam.

Springtime meant lacrosse for Sam and a time to play hard with his buddies. Ultimate frisbee at the park were memorable times for Sam and he would come home with a big smile on his face and grass stains on his body. Summers you could find Sam floating down the rivers, swinging from a rope swing, biking, or just hanging with friends. A summer would be complete with time spent at Camp Abnaki and jamming at Burlington Rock Camp. Fall would be the season Sam would try and stretch summer out a little bit more until the snow started to come. That time was then spent at Bolton Valley Resort on his snowboard. He enjoyed ariel tricks and hitting the rails. Mostly he enjoyed just hanging with his friends and little brother Gabe.

Sam loved music and was always plugged into some song. Guitar was second nature to Sam. He could play “Asturias” on his classical guitar to heavy metal on his Gibson. He enjoyed playing bass and wailing on the drums. His favorite times were when he would jamming with one of his friends, or his big brother Max.
It is hard to capture Sam’s true spirit in a few paragraphs. He taught us so much. Mostly he taught us to have fun, ease up, and to be there for each other. He is a true best friend to many and deeply missed.

Sam was born on May 28, 1992. He was hit by a car on November 20, 2006 in Florida while visiting friends. His beautiful body stayed strong long enough for organ donation. He gave his heart, liver, kidney, and kidney-pancreas so that four others would live. His spirit continues on through them and surrounds us today. Sam lived his life to its fullest on this planet.

To help with Sam's passing, John and his family create what are called SamStones.  Here's a short description, found on his website, of what they are:

SamStones are made with love by Sam’s friends and family. Our intent with these stones is to pass on some of that love.  If you have found a SamStone please feel free to keep it, move it or pass it on. We hope that you will pause and feel the love that is being passed on to you. 

If you would like to know more about Sam Stones, you can find out more here:  http://www.samestone.org/.  Corinn and I wanted to contribute, so we were given a bag of stones from Diane, John's wife, and will now bring them on our McBe Adventures.  My goal is to, as accurately as possible, track where I placed them with a photos of the location and to document that location within something like Google Maps.  So if you see future posts of SamStones, you'll know that we've traveled recently.  Below is our first map of where we placed many Sam Stones while in the UK.  Click on each marker, as the map is interactive, to learn more about the location we placed the stone and a short story of the site.  You can even change the terrain, move the map around, and zoom in and out!

Below are photos where we visited with Sam being part of the shots.  We tried placing Sam where we though he'd have a great view of the locations we visited.  Some shots were difficult to obtain while others we though were really great.  We figured this would be good to compliment the map above as a way to visually see more of where we traveled with him.  Hope you enjoy them! 

Sadly today is our last day on Skye.  We are due to drive to Inverness tonight, where we will spend the night before jetting down to London tomorrow.  The good news was that when we woke up this morning, the midge bites had disappeared, but the bad news was that we had to pack up and say good by to Bill and Charlotte and Ben Tianavaig B&B.  Our stay here has been fantasic, and after our yummy breakfast we packed up our bags, signed the guest book, turned in our keys and said good-bye to Bill and Charlotte. Our last stop on Skye was the Talisker Whisky Distillery.  After our trip to the Scotch Whisky Experience, Ray has expressed interest in visiting a distillery.  Turns outs it was a short drive from Portree so we headed to the South West of the island for a mid-day Distillery tour and tasting! Fortunately, we had some lovely scenery on our way off the island. Just off the island we made a quick stop at Eilean Donan Castle, the most photographed castle in Scotland.  Not too shabby, huh? Inverness is on the Ness River, which feeds out the North of the famous Loch Ness.  We drove up the West side of the Loch and even made a quick stop in Drmnadrochit to go to what I thought was the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition, which I had seen online and thought might be fun to check out.  Due to some similar naming and a bit of confusing signage, Ray and I ended up at the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition Centre, which as it turns out, is not quite the same thing.  Let's just say we got to see an interesting film on the history of the monster and read some great facts, but when we left, we kind of felt like we needed a shower... But Ray did make a new friend... After that we were on to Inverness and the Lynver Guest House. We checked in to our HUGE room and took the short walk to downtown and grabbed some grub.  Inverness has a lovely castle, but it's not open to the public, as it is still in use for public offices.  Tomorrow we are off to London!