I plucked a cool grey stone from the stream's sleepy bed. A perfect stone-skipping stone— flat and smooth— good for at least five skips, I guessed. I turned it over in my palm, ran my thumb around its polished contours. I imagined its journey— dislodged from river's bottom, heaved, propelled, smashed by punishing torrents. Until somehow, its once-jagged edges now rounded, it emerged downstream with a new purpose: defining and shaping the water. Even the strongest gales and most raging rapids have survivors. From space, the Colorado River looks like a 1,400 mile scar, but it also carved the Grand Canyon.