On the map, is still a shunting line, now superseded much of its length by .

Fording the Willamette River twice before sincerely turning south, I set the cruise control and retire; waking up on a bench by the Klamath River, officially a wild water rustling like leaves of a clear-cut forest, in California, where crows are squawking over crumbs. 

"What mountain is that?" I quiz a woman at a gas station pump. She shrugs her shoulders. Further down the road, Mount Shasta's stark white-powdered face confronts the mundane world with "mysterious lights and sounds."