The road I take from work each day weaves like a drunken man down to town. It follows about the same path as a fly in flight. There are so many corners, when you drive it at night your headlights illuminate naught but roadside. While making my way up for the first time, I swore I would never be able drive it at faster than 20 miles per hour.

Yet now, after more than 50 trips either up or down over the past seven weeks, it is nearly a daily flight. I hurtle down the hill and throttle up it. For a long time, I would make nearly the whole down trip in neutral, rolling my way to 35, 40, 45 mph (A regular Rolls Can’adly, anyone?). Then my dad made me realize my freewheeling ways might have some connection to my car’s faint but troubling squealing, so I stopped. The hill is still a raceway, but downshifting is now the order of the day.

In the past few weeks I have become fascinated with every roadside hollow. It could be my slightly slower pace. It could be I have become so accustomed to the commute that I am actually looking around. It could be all the reporting I have done on mining stories. See, I think every hole is an old mine. Some sit in the creases of the valley, shrouded in part by bushes. Some are simply deeper cuts along the rock mine. One is a small pocket in a long dirt wall that I am sure appeared overnight. So today I stopped to investigate.

I found no mines. But, walking along the road, I had virtually my first interaction on Big Hill Road. As I’ve mentioned before, the paved stretch is infamous for dumping, meth-heads and, a commodity forgotten the first time round, redneck residents. As I’ve also mentioned before, I have seen the first, not the second and the third, well, yes. (My landlord, for instance, describes himself as a “liberal redneck.”)

When I tell someone I live on the hill, they usually emit a low “Oh”. They look down and away and push their lips together. I can almost hear thoughts of worry. The courageous mention they hear crime is bad up there.

I had parked my car on the side of the strip and was walking back to one of the hollows when a small pickup in early-decay pulls up. “You OK dude?” asked the 20-something driver as he struggled to roll down his window. “Car break down or run out of gas or something?” he questioned, his voice heavy with concern and the air escaping from his car heavy with the scent of pot. Embarrassed by my mission, I said something about something flying out of my car. “Ok dude.” My friendly smoker drove on.

Such is life on the infamous hill.

Unfortunately, when I called back a week later and asked to rent the room it was already taken. But I found a situation almost as good.

I live in an old, semi-abandoned sawmill because it’s an adventure. When I moved in six weeks ago there were no locks on the front door. The shower had no door and when I turned it on anyways, the water ran brown. The dogs across the street howl at night and heavy machinery wakes me up sometimes on Monday mornings.

But a few days my landlord invited me to move earth in backhoe with wheels the size of my car. And a few weeks ago, after a friend of my landlord dropped by to warn me of a nearby fire, I walked to the end of the mill property, climbed a tree and watched as planes dropped water and retardant on the flames. And any day I want I can hop on my bike and ride from my front door straight into the woods. And moreover, within a half mile of my house I have found at least total eight mine shafts, all abandoned but for one with a red door and a white skull and crossbones spray-painted under the image of a mining pick. It’s an adventure everyday.

Ever drive past a construction site and had an urge to see if they forgot the keys? Or just to go sit up in the saddle of one of those dirt-blasted beasts? Well one drove up to my door today and asked me to drive. It was a thrill. Control of several tons of machine with the strength of scores of men. I ate the hillside. I conquered nature.

It also quickly became monotony. The machine is the latest apotheosis of manual labor. It has an air-conditioned glass cabin with a CD player and full radio. It has five speeds and lots of pickup. It corners better than a Ford. Even the dirt is protected: The shovel bounces with bumps so not a grain falls free. Adjusting it is a breeze. Lever up, lever down, tip up, tip down. The basics are mastered in a single try and most fine tuning with maybe a few days work. Undoubtedly there are artists out there, but functional use is straightforward.

During my hour in the backhoe, I started each trip at the dirt pile. I started by lowering the scoop and lay its flat jaw on the earth. Then I would floor the machine into the crumbling hillside. As I hit resistance, I would angle the jaw upward. I would trade throttle for lift until my scoop was full. Then I would navigate the machine down a wide track, past some beehives and into my landlord’s future motor cross track. Stopping in front of the latest berm, I would raise my load high and drop it continue the line. Then I would lift it higher still to lose the remaining dirt and would suddenly be struck. As the giant shovel lifted well above the cabin height, I realized what a monstrosity I was in. A modern-day dinosaur. Monotonous, maybe, but also monstrous.

Tonight someone from one of the score of properties across the road was trying to start a car. It squeaked metallically at each key turn, which the driver obstinately held longer and longer. But the engine never even burbled a hint that it would turn over. The attempts stopped after 10 minutes.

Lately, I have heard and felt machinery. Some Tuolumne Cou agency is renting land from the sawmill to house their machinery and though I arrive home well after five most days, I still catch the last trips the great earth diggers and movers. On the Mondays—which I have had free the past two weeks—I have been awakened by the sharp metallic clicks of the dual tracks which one large piece of machinery runs on. As the sound moves ominously closer the windows rattle and floor vibrates—somewhat alarming for the unsuspecting sleeper.

The most common noise is barking. A single dog will sometimes bark for a quarter of an hour without accompaniment, but more likely it will be joined by others. It seems most of the houses along the top of Big Hill Road and the adjoining lanes have dogs and at times nearly all of them exchange howls. Oddly, even at their peak I seldom notice. It is only when one of the owners yells for silence do I awaken to the cacophony. One man’s voice creaks out the “Shaddup” like a rusty saw pulling through tough wood. The female shrieks I’ve heard are equally fearsome. I have yet to meet my neighbors.

I have managed just one post in four weeks for a single reason: heat. The mercury has hovered at the century line for all but my first two weeks here. I have seen my car’s outside temperature gauge reach 112 here in Sonora. And, of course, there is the egg I cooked on a rusting saw blade. Thus, I have avoided my warm laptop.

It sounds a poor excuse; perhaps the heat has addled my brain. My cabin remains hot and all the methods I have tried—air conditioning, frequent cold showers, full ventilation—are either pointless or dangerous (I awoke covered in bites after keeping my bedroom window open, which I suppose is fitting as my poison oak had just cleared up).

So, my cabin is hot. But what is it like? I live in the renovated office of the former sawmill. Living room and kitchen have wooden floors and tasteful wooden paneling covers two of the four walls of the former. One of the remaining walls houses nearly a dozen large wooden cabinets and the other a cutout that looks into the narrow kitchen—which is a corridor of pasted together cabinets and tile, much acquired at scrap yards. The bedroom is the only carpeted area, and for that reason the room I sleep in stays a few degrees above the rest of the place—entirely soporific. The bathroom is also tiled with scrap, though one could hardly tell for a single blue tile which could well be seen as an artistic statement to the unknowing. The sink, however, is clearly a find, all 20 gallons of it stretching deep into the counter. All in all it’s a wonderful place, but hot. Excuse me while I pass out.

I work down the hill at a small paper in a small town located in a county about the size of Petaluma. People know each other here. When they say ‘Hi’ they usually mean it. I’m still getting used to this.

Today I drove my car to the emergency room of the only hospital in the county to interview people in the waiting room. (It was the second time I’ve done that. It really isn’t as obnoxious as it sounds. Honest.) The car’s thermometer read 107 degrees. It had cooled off.

I don’t, unfortunately, have any pictures to prove how hot it was. (Though tomorrow I will be cooking eggs out on the hood of the nearest abandoned tractor. Don’t worry. I’ll take pictures.) I do have pictures of, drumroll, wood. Yup. We’ve got lots of that here at the sawmill. Enjoy.