Later in the movie, after nearly a decade and a half have passed and the Grogans and their three model children have moved to a greeting-card perfect stone house with a barn in rural Pennsylvania, the years seem not to have touched them.
It begins with an inspirational thought that becomes a search for the perfect stone.
Perfect stone fruit can be elusive – it's all in the choosing.
I go in search of the perfect stone fruit every year.
But the more recent discovery of near perfect stone spheres, about the size of cricket balls, at similar sites in Britain, suggest that a ball-bearing technique might have been more efficient.
This was good news for those Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who wanted to share (without breaching cultural sensitivities) the story of Ngintaka, the creationist perentie lizard who searched for the perfect stone to grind seed.
Michelangelo did not merely sleep here; by day, he trudged up and down the vertiginous slopes in search of the perfect stone, and Carrara yielded the marble he used in the David and the Pietà.
When that day happens, 180 million miles away from home, in Gale Crater or elsewhere on the planet of Mars, for at least a moment, they might think back to their own simpler time when, on the shoreline of some body of water, they first learned the value of the perfect stone.
Distance 4 miles Start Letterfearn, Grid Ref: NG884238 Further information and maps Eilean Donan castle (eileandonancastle.com)is one of the Highlands', indeed Scotland's, most iconic landmarks – a picture-perfect stone fortress surrounded by water (and often thronging with visitors).
