From the vast archival desert...

...I pull this photo of my mom and me from way back in May 2002. We were driving through the Arizona (or hell, it could have been New Mexico, to a Midwestern girl like me, they all looked captivatingly the same), en route to San Diego.

It was the first of two summers I interned at KPBS radio, worked myriad jobs (holla, Kinko's) and got my fill of sweet coastal California life. Uncle Chris invited me out there at the end of his Pioneers and Settlers speech, one of the pivotal invitations I've received in my life. He opened his home and his family to me. I helped grocery shop and cook (and ate plenty, I'm sure. Gez, lay off the Pokey sticks, would ya, Ads?). Mother's and Father's Day. Birthdays. I felt like an adopted daughter. They were so patient as a stumbled and triumphed in my new surrounding. It's still a time period of my life of which I am so proud. Making friends out there. Going to movies, parks, festivals and beaches entirely on my own. Discovering Addie outside Missouri was thrilling. It was the exciting taste of exploration that led to me studying in Spain my junior year of college and, eventually, to move to Austin.

And my mom, literally my life's connection to Missouri, came with me on my journey across the country to drop me off on this new chapter. Neither of us really comprehended the impact of my time out there, which, as a The New York Times article last week concluded, is better. No preachy parting words. No defiance of parental authority (I'd had my fill of that the previous two semesters as a freshman at MU). Just buzzing through the CDs and random truck stops along I-40, observing the now, recalling the past and hinting at the future along the way.

I fell in love a couple of times in San Diego, but fresh out of my chrysalis, I mainly fell in love with me. You're supposed to do that in college. You finally get to make all these concrete decisions based on whatever the hell you want. I'm just so thankful that they gave me the opportunity to do that. The Cooks for providing a home away from home. My parents for the good old '98 Corolla I still drive and for keeping me company along the way.

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Randomly from the archives: Dearest Scott Schnelle, always the animal lover, took in a pair of skunks right before I took off that summer. On one of those trips to Lockwood to visit Troy, he showed them off inside their little cardboard box homes. If I remember correctly, one of the little guys stuck around and, though he lived outside, hung around the house for awhile. Unless I'm getting my animal stories swapped. Scott has so many run-ins with critters, it's hard to keep the tales straight. Ask him about the bobcat sometime. Or maybe the two Jills.

Thought I might showcase a different baby every now and then.