September 23, 2007.
On my rafting trip through Grand Canyon last month, I took along three water bottles, per the outfitter‘s instructions.
For two weeks, those bottles spent every day clipped to the raft next to me — banging around, getting doused in the rapids, baking in the sun, and being abraded by the considerable grit in the Colorado River.
All three bottles were off-the-shelf new when the trip began. This is how they look today.
A Nalgene logo used to be above the bulldog’s head, but it got sanded off. I also had a “Defenders of Wildlife” sticker on the other side of that bottle. It was erased, too.
This is an example of your basic erosional forces at work. This is how Grand Canyon got dug, don‘t you know.
I had to look up “erosional” to see if it was an actual word. I never should have doubted you…
I had to look it up, too, when my spellchecker choked on it.