This is the story of a research journey that follows the trail of a novel evaluand--"place." I examine place as mentioned by rising juniors in timed exams. Using a hybridized methodology--the qualitative approach of a hermeneutic dialectic process as described by Guba and Lincoln (1989), and the quantitative evidence of place mention--I query student writing to uncover motivations for reliance on place-based experience despite the absence of an explicit mention of place in the writing prompt. Finally, I consider implications for using generative prompts to elicit evidence of student learning. (Contains 2 figures.)