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! 

Today ended the first "phase" of our Brittish vacation; we depart the comfortable confines of the Nasmyth household in Dunfermline (just outside Edinburgh, on the East coast of Scotland) and head up for the road trip/Highlands portion of our trip.  We will spend the next four days attempting to drive on the left, not get into an accident, manage the inconceivable road signs, single-track roads, sheep hurds and majestic views as we travel to the West coast to visit the Isle of Skye and Inverness.

Day One, and Ray has me driving already... We did pay for two drivers (not to mention the FULL COVERAGE on the hire car - it was about 2 pounds more a day, so we figured we'd hedge our bets)... but as I had viewed most of the scenery before (although it was 8 or 13 years ago) we figured Ray could ooh and ahh at the vistas and keep me in the lane, and I would manage the speed and the other tourists.  We picked the hire car up yesterday, Ray sat in the back and Charles in the passenger seat, to help direct me home.  He was calm, even and completely unflustered, even after reminding me "mind the curb" (*BANG* as I bump the curb on the left... we hadn't even left the airport yet....) and "mind the bus" while he was inches away from it.  Ray believes he might have saved our marriage, as I don't take driving advice all that well from him.... Our route took us past Stirling and the Trossachs National Park, where Lochs Katrine and Lomond are, and we only got lost once.  Mind you, it was in the Nasmyths neighborhood, but after the first 10 minutes, we were on our way!  Our first stop was in Tyndrum, at The Green Welly Stop.  We had been advised by Charles that this would be a good place to pause for food, and so we stopped for some lunch of packaged sandwiches, ice cream and Irn Bru! Irn Bru was on the list of "Things Ray Must Consume While in Scotland"!  It's a soda, and comes in two flavors as far as I can tell (orange and purple).  Scotland is the only country in the world where Coca-Cola isn't the top selling soda - Irn Bru is!  I have my own personal opinion about Irn Bru, but it's part of the Scottish experience, and here is what Ray thought of it!

I agree with Ray!  I think it tastes like cough syrup, but capturing his honest reaction was priceless!

And here is a bit of a glimpse of what most of the trip was like!  Ray, outside the hire car, snapping photos!

The weather was mixed, we had sunny patches, cloudy patches and certainly some of the famous (and well remembered) misty Scottish rain!  Here are some photos from our trip between Tyndrum and Mallaig, where we caught the ferry to Skye. Here are a few photos of Rannoch Moor, lovely isloated rugged mountains, and Ray's first real taste of the Highlands. Glen Coe, some of the most majestic and beautiful scenery in the Highlands, and also the scene of an ancient massacre. The entire day was a bit of a race against the clock.  We were meant to catch the last ferry (at 6:00pm) in Mallaig over to Skye and we had to be there at least a half hour before the ferry sailed.  Unfortunately, we had very little sense of how long it would take us to get where we were going, or if we had time to be slow or if we had to rush.  By the time we reached Fort William, we knew we would make it (we didn't wan to be late, as we had already paid for it!), so we took a brief pause at Glenfinnan.  Glenfinnan is where Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland before the Jacobite uprising in 1745 and there is a memorial there to the fallen Highlanders and a lovely view down Loch Shiel.  Unfortunately, it was raining.... It also happens to be the home of the viaduct seen in the Harry Potter movies, and so we had to take a quick glance... We did make our ferry, and managed to get over to Skye, without much incident.  We stopped in Broadford for a bite of dinner and then rung our B&B to let them know we were on our way.   We made a late arrival, but were warmly welcomed by owners Charlotte and Bill and our room couldn't be more wonderful!  Tomorrow will be our day to tour around the isle, and we are hopping for sunny weather!