12 Hours; 300+ miles; 2 phantom addresses and 6 tubs of margarine

Did you ever try to see how far it was from your house to somewhere and start to wonder about the other addresses that Google Maps suggests to you? I mean the ones that are the same as your address but in different towns? Well, I have. And one day a few months ago I plotted a looping drive the visited three of them. Then I said, "We should drive this some day" and "Some Day" was yesterday, July 21st. 

The loop, according to Google, would take 7 hours and change. It took us 12 hours because what fun is it to just sit in the car for 7 hours? 

The first stop was in West Chester, PA We left home just before 8 am and headed to the DK Diner in West Chester on our way to visit the first stop. This was our first time at DK and we do recommend it. Good food, reasonable prices. We may have been the only non-regulars in the place but that didn't mean anything to the staff. They were very pleasant and helpful. It is a cash only establishment though so be prepared. http://www.dkdiner.com/ 

Next we were off to the first address on our tour. Unfortunately it did not exist. The road existed but not the address Google claimed was there. Perhaps it exists in an alternate universe a la Platform 9 and 3/4? We decided we would not ram someone's mailbox to find out. It was a mystery left unsolved as we moved on to our next stop. 

The next address on our tour was several hours and many miles away in Hamburg, NJ. Looking at our tour we realized we could angle through Easton PA. Easton is one of the towns in our "Look Up Pennsylvania" book so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity. 

Our journey to Easton took us past the Groundhog Locks in Delaware Canal State Park so we stopped for a walk around. 

Easton was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting the Crayola Factory and a more industrial looking town. Instead we found amazing preserved historical buildings. Only some of which were on our tour. We recommend a walk about in Easton. If you go, we also recommend a stop at Mia & M
addies Bakery. As we walked by we both commented on how good it smelled. A young woman at the door assured us it was as good as it smelled and further informed that they had the best chocolate chip cookies in Easton. How could we not stop in and see for our selves. Of course she was right :) 

After completing our tour of Easton, we moved on to our next address. Turns out Google was yet again mistaken as there was no shared address in Hamburg, NJ. However, there was a common intersection. 

From here it was on to stop #3. This address in Parsippany, NJ does exist. It is a split level home. So Google got three out of four addresses right (one of them being our own.) It was a goofy thing to do and a fun way to spend a day. 

Now, about the margarine. Land O Lakes is one (if not the only) maker of margarine in this area. There are other 'spreads' available but only LOL's qualifies as margarine. Slowly but surely though, stores around us have stopped selling it. Unrelated to this trip, we discovered that a certain store does still sell it but they are not in PA. There are several in NJ though. When we realized we'd be heading near one of the stores on this trip we decided to bring a cooler and stock up. 

We stopped for a meal at a diner near the store and after that and stopping for the shopping, we arrived back home almost exactly 12 hours after we left. 

-Keep Smiling Keep Moving

-Paula