Heh. I guess I should've just gone to the book's web site because I would've seen this almost right away: http://resources.arcgis.com/en/communities/understanding-gis/01w300000006000000.htm. Oops. tl;dr version: when running the Near tool, use FiveSites as the input feature, LARiver as the Near Features and enter a value of 2 and set the units to Miles, then click on OK.
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