by Emily Steves, @SeeEmilyPlay

Fresh stone and oil meet worn, grooved pavement at the top of the last paved hill on Promised Land Road in Portville, N.Y. Though Trisha Noller’s house is the second-to-last on the road before the dead end, it’s not unusual for her to see random cars with out-of-state license plates drive back and forth in front of her house.

“I’ve seen people from Tennessee, Nebraska; they all come around here all the time,” Noller said. “My son, who’s 8, I said next year he’s going to have a lemonade stand.”

To match the grooved road, cracks run up the Nollers’ paved driveway, a result of drivers turning around or temporarily parking there.

“They (the town) said they stopped paving the road because that’s the county line, which is not true,” Noller said. “They stopped it because of the illusion.”

Known to most as “the illusion”…