Germantown Hills lives up to its name: wooded ridges and ravines above the Illinois River, with the valley laid out below and Route 116 climbing up out of it. CRUSE LAWN AND OUTDOOR SERVICES mows those sloped lawns all summer, cutting across the grade, trimming where a yard runs into the oaks, edging drives that fall away toward the road. Autumn here is enormous — the whole hillside comes down in leaves, and cleanup gets measured in loads rather than hours. Then winter makes a hill an entirely different animal, and a steep drive glazed overnight needs the plow and salt before anybody attempts it. Opening a bluff-top driveway at daybreak, river fog still sitting in the valley below, is the finest part of the season.