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! 

And we've landed!

After a fairly uneventful day spent in Newark Airport, awaiting our 7:50pm flight, and a (fortunately) fairly uneventful flight (not mentioning the 6+ hours spent in non-reclining seats...) we arrived at Edinburgh Airport and got big hugs from the Nasmyths.  They thoughtfully wisked us home for showers and breakfast.  By midday we were ready to hit the road.  A low-key day was in order, and a little bit of casual site seeting in and around Fife was right up our alley.

First Charles and Mary took us to Lower Largo, a quaint little fishing town, which also happens to be home of the statue to Alexander Selkirk, the man whose adventures inspired Robinson Crusoe.

It seemed the plan was a bit of a tour of the small, and lovely, fishing villages on the East coast on our way to St. Andrews, where I had done my semester abroad.  Ray was geared up for lots 'o photos.  Our next stop was Elie, for some photos and chips by the beach - complete with vinegar and brown sauce.  Yum!

Crail is the quintessential East coast fishing village and is very near St. Andrews, so it was our third stop.  We saw lovely views, a very low tide and encountered our first Scottish rainstorm - this means that we were getting wet, but there was blue sky directly above... and no real clear explanation for where the rain was coming from... As we wandered around town, we passed a Bed & Breakfast which seemed to have an interesting tradition.... flag of the day... Our final stop of the day was St. Andrews, my old stomping ground.  I was very excited to show Ray the tiny little town I had spent my semester abroad in.  Funny thing... in 8 years a few things had changed....  I was shocked to see the number of tourists and the fact that there was an open top bus tour of the town!  For crying out loud - the downtown is made up of 4 streets each 3 blocks long, and the grocery store is the size of a gas station!  Well, as it turns out a few rather large hotels and new golf courses have been built, to take advantage of the fact that St. Andrews has the oldest golf course in the world.  Wow!  We did a quick driving tour of the town and took Ray to the cathedral ruins - his first! We stopped at the beach, which is out near my old hall of residence and gives the best vantage points of the town.  The wind was unbelieveable, and the fine sand was whipping down the beach like we were in the middle of the desert! The final part of our trip to St. Andrews was a visit to Andrew Melville Hall!  The building was designed to look like two ships passing in the night.... well... no one is quite sure they got it right, but ironically the concrete building is sinking into the ground.  The lawn out front was designed to look like the rolling waves of the ocean... and thus there are several large "mounds" near the building.  As a resident of Andrew Melville Hall, you had to be "inducted" via a process referred to as being "mounded".  At a most inopportune time, usually when barefooted, in the winter and preferably in your PJs, your fellow hallmates would pick you up, carry you outside and dump you on top of the closest "mound".  Once "mounded" you were officially a member of the hall.  So while I couldn't carry him, I did get Ray up top of the mound for a photo!