For my money, living on Millertown Road is as good as it gets.

Folks with homes perched on the rim of the canyon will argue that their views are to die for, and I can’t deny that. But when reduced to the essences of quality of life—a solitary quietness and sense of peace and well being—Millertown Road is in a class by itself. To truly appreciate the virtues of the place, surely there is no substitute for living here.

Barely one mile from the Auburn city limits, your first view comes up quickly on Mt. Vernon Road as you spin out of a series of “S” turns. Millertown Road slices back to the left and it is easy to miss ... but not the stunning vista at dusk of horses grazing in a wide meadow framed by a tree-studded ridgeline.

Just two miles in length, I have developed an intimacy with Millertown Road that can be achieved only through walking countless circuits from the stop sign at Mt. Vernon to the stop sign at Wise Road. When you walk you observe details that are lost completely when closed up in a moving vehicle. From season to season in all kinds of weather and at different times of day, you are blessed with the luxury of learning about and appreciating a very special place.

It’s downhill for the most part from Mt. Vernon, and what is essentially a country lane turns right at a “tee.” After a long, straight section, a gentle left turn descends on rolling pastures lined with gnarly oaks shading lazy cows munching on grasses. A new family of wild turkeys owns this section of Millertown, so drivers beware.

Cresting a hill, the road falls steeply to a one-lane bridge and then turns left 90 degrees. This is the first appearance of the North Ravine, a relentless, year-round waterway that drains from Rollins Lake. During the winter this creek turns angry when rain water floods down from the hillside that forms a towering wall dense with scrubby trees on the right. The road narrows dangerously and is darkened all day by a canopy of trees.

After negotiating a treacherous blind corner, a ravine courses down to Wise Road, with the churning of the North Ravine a constant background melody. The road sweeps and turns and drops and homes dot both sides of Millertown, many hidden away by ancient vegetation.

There is a duality to Millertown Road that I find fascinating. The early homes constructed here are solid, basic structures, owner-built without pretension. Some of these modest houses could charitably be deemed “shacks,” unpainted, wooden frame buildings comprising just a few rooms, with junked cars and years of accumulated cast-offs rotting in side yards where they were dumped.

Newcomers to Millertown Road, oblivious to the economic texture of the neighborhood, are building grand homes, impressive estates actually, with massive concrete driveways and stately wrought-iron gates creating impenetrable fortresses in the midst of a simple country setting. Money is coming in a big way because three new streets have been laid out by developers eager to cash in on our little slice of paradise.

Since I’ve lived here for just 16 months, I suppose it is presumptuous of me to rue the fact that Millertown Road is changing. But I can see the day—and it will come—when the working ranches here are sliced up for rambling homes with four-car garages of the ilk of the new “Vineyards” on Mt. Vernon Road.

Nothing lasts forever, no matter how sweet it is, and I know this because of my own hard experiences. But I’ve learned to enjoy life in the moment, and that’s what I try to do every day on Millertown Road. As I write this outside on my patio, the creek is alive and rumbling below me, a constant, reassuring presence and connection. A doe is grazing, not 50 feet away. She comes every day, looks at me, ears twitching, tail flagging.

When I go to sleep at night with the windows wide open, I fade away with coyotes baying softly in the distance. I hear the faint whistles of freight trains passing through Auburn. Water is crashing against boulders, and I am reassured that everything is all right on Millertown Road.

Gary Moffat is a journalist and co-owner of Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. Read his other work at www.onlyinauburn.com and www.carpevinoauburn.com.