Name: Aaron Carr

Location: 35°27’16.7″N 105°40’37.3″W (Rowe Mesa, NM)

Story: We went out with my family today to the Rowe Mesa to hunt for two Christmas trees for the holiday season. After searching for a while, we found the perfect piñon tree so we decided to go ahead and cut ‘er down. I got down on my knees to clear some ground around the base and noticed a stone, a river stone that surprisingly really stood out being we were so far above any water source. It wasn’t but a second further I noticed the writing ‘Sam’ upon it, we both stopped and I stood up. ‘Uh oh babe’ don’t think we can cut this one down, and we thought together that this could be a tree planted in remembrance to a person, or otherwise a gravestone. I then reached down and noticed written upon the stone, so eloquently carved and painted was also a website! Surprisingly we had a signal so I decided to look it up! Much to our relief we read the story about Sam and we had the chance to recollect the life he had lived and loved in Vermont. We would be of similar age now, Sam would’ve been a few years younger than my girlfriend and five of me. After some discussion we decided we would take both the tree and the Samstone, as the stone must had been there a while we were sure it spent special energy creating such a pretty Christmas tree. I reckon the piñon tree to be around 15 years old, perhaps a little younger, but at cut it was near seven feet tall. The stone will hang around us for the holiday season and now that I have found out that Sam loved snowboarding I will take his stone along with me to shred the gnar. I love snowboarding as well and I’m certain I will soon find a new place amongst the aspens and pines (perhaps another sapling) at Ski Santa Fe in the near future!

Love,

Aaron, Jess and Oso