Editor's note: Teri Vance is Washington, D.C., for the inauguration. Go to her Uniquely Nevada blog at www.nevadaappeal.com for updates.
It's really cold here in Washington, D.C. And crowded. Which means there are a lot of people packed into tight spaces.
As such, I've had an up-close look at all the buttons, hats, T-shirts and scarves bearing the image of the 44th president.
Along with Barack Obama's face, there are words like "hope" and "joy" scrawled on paraphernalia of all sorts, and I've read the phrase, "Yes, we can," and all its iterations more times than would be possible to number.
But I expected that " from tourists.
What I didn't expect is the spirit and energy coming from the locals themselves. I figured Washington, D.C., had seen enough inaugurations to bring a little cynicism, maybe just healthy skepticism, to the scene.
But it is quite the opposite.
"Yes, we did," reads a banner across the sign of a local restaurant.
Pepsi signs hanging in the Metro station advertise hope rather than the product name.
The Franklin Mint has vendors on the street selling dollar coins with Obama's face on them.
Carson High School teacher Angila Golik even took a picture of a sign across an AFL-CIO building welcoming the Obama children that said "Welcome Sasha and Malia."
In a special inauguration issue of the Washington Post Magazine, Gene Weingarten wrote that the public expects the new president to "reinvigorate the economy; repair America's reputation at home and abroad; institute universal health care; lower taxes; save the polar bear; heal the sick; reanimate the dead; end the madness of robo-calls; restore the taste of the American tomato;" and the list goes on.
"Where are all the conservatives?" I wondered as I witnessed this untempered salute to the incoming commander in chief.
Columnist S.E. Cupp answered my question in his piece in Sunday's Washington Post.
They've left town.
"Lobbyist John Goodwin is spending four days with 10 pals in a cabin in Maryland, skiing and playing board games," Cupp wrote. "J.P. Freire, the managing editor of the American Spectator, hopes to rent a lake or beach house with some buddies."
It's not that I don't appreciate the enthusiasm. I just felt uncomfortable with the seeming disregard for the reality of it all. Obama is one of many presidents and there's certainly a limit to what he can accomplish, especially in this time of war and economic uncertainty.
But then, as I was walking to the Capitol this weekend, I saw a family walking in the same direction.
"Is this where we're going to see Barack Obama?" the little boy asked his parents.
The family was black. And I realized that little boy wouldn't remember a time when it seemed impossible for a black man to be elected to the nation's highest office.
His earliest memories of the White House will include images of a black family living inside.
The Capitol he was about to tour was built using the labor of slaves. Across the mall, activist Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of this day.
In that little boy, I saw the reason to suspend skepticism " at least for the moment. There will be plenty of time to analyze, theorize and criticize.
Now is the time to hope.