It needs to go under the sand. Or not really be there, the reason is the desert is one of the main obstacles keeping people from going west. There isn't enough easily accessible water to cross it. Which is why i wanted it to go underground. But for the matter it doesn't really have to pop back up. It can just hit underground caves until it finds the ocean.

I have a few creatures that live in those caves too, so i think that would work. I need to figure out how to use Wilbur with gimp and get some more rivers into the sample map i made. Mostly just for the artist to use as references. But its also neat to play with.