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! 

After a long day traveling around Skye, we had dinner in Portree and went back to the B&B. Due to my “in the moment”, spontaneous nature, I decided that even though it was 9PM, we needed to experience a night out in Skye.  Without much convincing, I was able to get Corinn back into the car and we headed north towards what is called the Quiraing.

If you didn’t know already, the Quiraing is an area where you can only get to on a single-track road, out in the middle of no where. It’s not on a primary road, nor is it traveled much, but will give us one of many authentic reasons as to why Skye is so awesome.  I only heard about this location through Corinn, never have I seen actual photos, but this was a great opportunity for me to experience first hand.

Oh, and I forgot to mention two more things: 

• Some of the tallest points in the Quiraing are cliffs that range between 200 to 500+ meters above sea level.
  
• I have a severe, fear of heights.
  

During our travels, we hit the spot where I started to feel my palms sweat.  This was the road that winds down to the lower part of the Quiraing, but before we went down, we got out of the car to take a moment in.  And when I say got out, it’s really an average of Corinn's enthusiasm of jumping out with excitement and me cowardly and slowly clinging onto the car door as I stepped out.  Corinn immediately ran up the cliff and took a look out while throwing out her arms and exclaimed, “THIS IS SO FRIGGIN’ AWESOME!” Meanwhile, I’m clinging to the ground telling her to get down because I was afraid she might slip and fall!  I was definitely freaking out.  What’s better?  She momentarily forgets about my fear of heights and suggests I take a photo at the top of the cliff.  I attempted to walk up the steep, slippery path, but I couldn’t go much farther before the height and the midges got to me.

Yep... Beautiful, but frightfully scary!!! 

If you don’t know what midges are, imagine tiny mosquitoes in dense, constantly biting swarms though they don’t leave marks.  However, when they get into a swarm, it’s best that you’re not in the middle of it, much like I was.  Corinn ended up fleeing to the car while I attempted to get a panoramic view of the valley and cliffs we observed.  I was biting my lip because the stinging pain of the midges got worse as I tried to stay still in one spot.  They got into my ears, eyes, hair, beard, nose, etc.  It was horrible; it very much felt like my whole face expanded and was on fire with pain.  Best of all, we brought midge repellent for a day/night like this, but the only night where we needed it badly, we forgot to take it with us as it was left back in the B&B.  Once I got the photos, we left the scene after one more shot of us with the view in the background.

As we headed down the road, I clung onto the door.  Strange, but as you went further down the single-track road, the cliffs didn’t look as bad as they did when looking down them.  Maybe that’s always the case; I had the same memories of when I was looking up at the high dive in a pool vs. looking down from a high dive, which always felt worse.

Despite the midge attacks, the view and experience was incredible.  Once we got out further, I jumped out of the car to look back and take several photos of some awesome moon shot opportunities behind us.  As I was setting up and taking photos, Corinn stayed in the car, facing me, laughing with the windows up.  I couldn’t hear, tell or understand why she was laughing, but I thought it was hilarious that when she did laugh, she would sometimes sync up with the hundreds of sheep in the land, baaing in the night.  After almost 30 minutes go by as I was taking photos, Corinn points behind me and when I finally took the hint, about 11 sheep were standing no more than 10 feet behind me, staring.  They snuck up while I was busy and I didn’t think much of the possibility of sheep around me until just now.  The sheep stared at me with almost blank, yet curious looks on their faces.  Some torqued their head much like a curious puppy would. Eventually, I chased after them for fun and they stumbled a bit and then ran off.  Corinn loved this, but didn’t have her small camera with her to preserve the memory of this night.  She dubbed this “phenomena”as “sheep creep”.

Here are some of the shots I took during the sheep creep to share of the unusual, surreal beauty that the Quiraing shares. 

Last, but not least, what I looked like after heading back to the B&B, hours after the midge attack:

Today we awoke at our wonderful B&B, Ben Tianavaig, and to a yummy breakfast prepared for us by Bill and Charlotte, the owners.  Bill made introductions for us all around the room, and we were able to enjoy some pleasant conversation with our fellow guests.

Unfortunately these photos are a bit deceiving, while Ray has just recently taken them this evening, our morning weather was rainy.  Our original plan was to drive up the North East coast and take in the sites of the The Old Man of Stoor and Kilt Rock before heading over the Quiraing, a single-track road we've been told has wonderful views.  Bill informed us that what is true of the mainland Scottish weather, is also true on Skye, so just because it was raining in Portree didn't mean it was raining in the West.  So we cut the North East portion of our day trip out for now and headed for the West coast and Dunvegan Castle.  Dunvegan Castle has been home to the Chief of Clan MacLeod for over 800 years, and is (I believe) the oldest castle that is still inhabited. Once again, we were not able to take photos on the inside, but the castle houses many different pieces of the clan history, a facinating history and some killer views of Loch Dunvegan, which is really part of the sea. The Castle also has some extensive gardens, which we only had a brief opportunity to explore, before the Corinn-needs-feeding monster began to rear her head. So we opted for a take away lunch of sandwiches and headed down a very narrow, very busy single track road to find the coral beaches, not far from the Castle.  Well the drive was a bit harrowing, as it was my first single track road, and then the parking was a whole other experience, because we weren't the only ones with the same idea, but fortunately we had taken the full coverage out on the car, so parking in the mud and bushes seemed less of a concern than it might have otherwise.  I did fail to notice the "1 Mile to Coral Beach" sign we passed on our stroll out... and wondered why it took us so long to arrive... Can you see it off in the distance? And... because apparently we don't have cows in Vermont.... Ray took this photo.... The weather did improve, and we had a lovely drive home this evening.  Here is one of Ray's (very cool) HDR photos.... not sure what he does to make them, but I know he takes a series of 3 photos at different exposures?  Maybe?  And then somehow compiles them.  Any way he does it, they turn out AMAZINGLY!

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!