Bottle Carrier: Michele
Current Location:  Breckenridge, CO
Date: October 5, 2009

Story: Growing up in New York City I certainly never expected to be raising  
my own family in a Colorado mountain town, but here I am!  My life  
experience was urban to the extreme, until one fateful day when I met  
my husband in an Upper West Side subway station.  That's when our  
adventure began.  Traveling with him around the western US opened my  
eyes to a fantastic, natural world where there is a Nalgene bottle  
attached to every backpack!

Thanks, your bottles have become a true symbol of my personal Pursuit  
of Happiness.

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Bottle Carrier: Elizabeth
Current Location:  Denver, CO - Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant in Denver complete with cliff divers, escaping gorillas, cowboy shootouts, lost caves and caverns, amusement arcade and more (a pretty fun place)
Date: September 14, 2009

Story: I love to travel and seeing a different part of this great country every few months.  However with the current economy, I started "traveling" to exotic and fun restaurants closer to home – it's less expensive and still fun.  Hopefully I can win this contest and travel for real again soon!

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Original Bottle Carriers: Janie and Joey
Current Location: Breckenridge, CO
Date: September 8, 2009

Story: I'm Janie, mother of two beautiful boys, living the dream in Colorado.  
When my oldest son Joey, turned four we started our backpack camping adventures together – a mom and son experience.  We practiced hiking on local trails, revised our backpacks contents many times, and determined just how far we could hike and still call it fun at the end of the day.  We started with easy trails and two nights out … and last June we completed a five night trip in our favorite spot, Rocky Mountain National Park!  
We end the summer with an all family backpack camping trip (my youngest son recently turned four), and on this trip we endured a pretty big climb (800 vert in less than a mile) during which Joey said to his Dad "you might not be having so much fun now, but you just have to keep going, because when you're done, then you'll be happy you did all that" gesturing to the grand staircase of rock trail we were climbing … these great words of wisdom -- perseverance  -- learned simply by doing and experiencing.
So our American Experience is in pursuing a different route, tackling more aggressive plans, sharing a unique journey; happily learning from each other and the vast outdoors … best teacher in the world.  
 None of this would be quite so easy without Nalgene.  As big a part of our lives as fruit strips and mac-n-cheese, we wouldn't get out of our driveway without several Nalgene containers … always refilled with something we love.  Thank you Nalgene!!

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