I read Beverly Cleary's Ramona books as a kid. The books are set in Portland, Oregon (Northeast, predominantly). I started reading the books when I lived in Camarillo, California. And then, for years, the Portland of the Ramona books was basically Camarillo with Mt. Hood over it.
Y'know, even though I was always an imaginative kid, I wasn't always image-imaginative, if that makes any sense. Camarillo was, perhaps, just easier for me to picture. And I knew Northeast Portland; all four of my grandparents lived there for years, my Dad grew up there, and Mom moved there in the early 60s. I visited a lot. Still didn't immediately picture it anything like what Cleary intended when I read her books.
No problem, anyone can visualize the books they read however they like, but when it dawned on me that that was what Iweas doing, I felt a little lazy.
Unrelated P.S. This, by the way, is my 4,000th journal entry. Whoa. My 3,000th post was back on Jan. 20th, 2009.