Of mice and men (response #1)

A few miles south of soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees-willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool.

I really like this example of imagery because it reminds me of my childhood. My grandparents used to have forty acres which I used to travel around and look at all the nature. The creek is the most relaxing part of it. I like how Steinbeck uses personification to describe how the water got warm. He says it slipped over the yellow sands not flowed to make it sound like more of an accident of the waters part. I think Steinbeck is trying to set up a state of tranquility because later in the story something bad will happen here.