follows the river as it bends along the valley floor, going the way it must. Where water goes, so goes the road, if there's room (not in a ravine, gorge), the river on your right or left. Left is better: when you're driving, it's over your elbow across the road. You see the current, which is what the river is: the river in the river, a thing sliding fast forward inside a thing sliding not so fast forward. Driving with, beside, the river's flow is good. Another pleasure, driving against it: it's the same river someone else will see somewhere else downstream -- same play, new theater, different set. Wide, shallow, fairly fast, roundy-stone streambed, rocky-land river, it turns there or here -- the ground telling it so -- draining dull mountains to the north, migrating, feeding a few hard-fleshed fish who live in it. One small sandbar splits the river, then it loops left, the road right, and the river's silver slips under the trees, into the forest, and over the sharp perpendicular edge of the earth.