'Hurting and hoping' across the land

WASHINGTON — It was a haul, but we finally made it to Washington, coming in with a cold front that has compelled locals and visitors alike to dress as if on an Icelandic expedition as they navigate sidewalks filled with souvenir kiosks and security barriers. It's supposed to warm a bit for the big day -- the combined body heat of a million-plus people alone ought to be worth a few degrees of warmth.

Ours was by no means the direct route. Times photographer Kirk McKoy and I headed out from Los Angeles six weeks ago, meandering mostly by rental car across this vast land and into the lives of dozens of Americans at this moment of transition.

Plumbers and petroleum barons, Las Vegas imams and New Orleans hurricane survivors, auto dealers, music teachers, truckers and mayors, peaceniks, Vietnam vets, even a self-proclaimed prophet of doom -- we met all of these and more along the way.

The viewpoints, as one might imagine, were all over the map, but there were some common themes.

Again and again, we heard people express their frustration with the present and fears about the future, and then conclude with a message of hope. Americans are a resilient tribe, and in these hard times it's a virtue that serves them well. Stoicism aside, concern about the economy crept into almost every conversation.

A member of the marching band at a high school outside Detroit mentioned that his dad would not be traveling here to see him perform in the inaugural parade: "He works in the auto business, and he just got laid off the other day. It's the second time in two years."

The owner of a barbecue restaurant in Cairo, Ill., asked about racial tensions that in the late 1960s tore his town apart, said that there was no longer room for segregationist attitudes: "Everybody's money is green, and that is what this town needs these days."

In Utah, at the end of a strange sort of Bible study led by a Mormon outcast who considers himself a prophet, a transmission mechanic became agitated when we turned the discussion to politics. Squeezed on a couch with other followers, this young man raged about the greed of automakers, the incompetence of financiers:

"And now all of them are coming before Congress to ask for a bailout," he fumed, voice rising. "They want my money to stay afloat! Well, nobody's going to bail out the transmission business, are they?"