Today, I'll be embedded with the Lynchburg Tea Party at "Restoring Honor," Glenn Beck's "non-political" rally for "integrity, truth and honor" on the National Mall. Stay with us all day for an inside look at the event, from the perspective of Virginia's most dedicated tea partiers.

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4 p.m. Washington D.C.: Cesspool of dishonor or greatest city on earth?

In the days leading up to the rally, the Tea Partiers have been characterized as a people who hate Washington D.C. and are too racist to give it a second look. But do Tea Partiers hate D.C. as much as D.C. hates them?

Len Ferenchik and his wife came to Washington from Johnstown, Pa. “looking to restore honor back to America.” But Washington, D.C. may be a lost cause. “Personally, I think it’s a cesspool,” Ferenchik said of the city. “A cesspool of compromise and dishonor.” Not that he’s seen much: “Haven’t seen a whole lot. I’m not crazy about what I see here sometimes,” Ferenchik says. But he’ll make the sacrifice of hanging out here for a few hours for what he believes in: “This is where the cesspool is, and it’s gotta start here,” he says.

But for some Tea Partiers, the water in this cesspool feels just fine. "Greatest city on earth," counters rally attendee Dave Smith of Glen Burnie, Md.

Karen Nunes, who arrived to help "start the restoring honor process in our country,” thinks it's a wash. It's "a lovely place," she says. And "once we get them cleaning house, I think it will be a great place.”

Larry McFadden of Cooksburg, Pa. has got the remedy: "It needs an enema,” Mcfadden says. “I'm serious. It does need an enema. It doesn’t work. . . . I don’t want to disparage the city. It has some beautiful spots, and it has some deplorable spots, and the government is responsible for both of them."

Other Tea Partiers don't know a part of Washington that hasn't been touched by Glenn Beck: "We just came here via Subway . . . just got off the bus," says George Gregorio of Jonestown, Va. "Hicks from up the crick, you know."

And Gary Taylor of Kingsport, Tenn. remained diplomatic: "It's a big place," he says. "Lot of people."

3:30 p.m. Final thoughts from the Lynchburg Tea Party

Gathered back at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel, Lynchburg's tea partiers have gotten their fill of Beck, Palin, and King -- now they're just waiting to get out of here. When they'll leave for Lynchburg: "I have no idea," Lloyd says. "Right now we're at the mercy of the bus driver."

The rally was worth the wait. "I'm hearing a lot of words like ‘awesome,' 'great,' ;wonderful,'" Lloyd says. "Folks that were here, they needed to be here and hear the message that Beck put out. It was good. . . . Everybody seems to be pretty pumped up." Even the guy who ended up in the hospital:

Lynchburg Tea Party casualty count: One.

One member of the group split his big toe open en route to the rally, and was sent to the emergency room for three stitches on the appendage. He ended up skipping the Mall and watching the program from the big screen at the hotel. "He had the best seat of all of us," Lloyd says.

2:35 p.m. Sweetest moment of the day

Jim McKelvey of Moneta, Va., joined up with Lloyd at the Americans for Prosperity breakfast. McKelvey is a former Virginia Congressional candidate who is pro-gun, pro-troops, pro-term-limits campaign, and anti-littering --- once we made our way down to the Mall, he took the time to pick up stray pieces of trash dotting the lawn leading up to the rally.

2:30 p.m. Saddest moment of the day

Me, in a fanny pack, dehydrated, needing to pee, crouching alone in a clearing, finishing off a day-old chicken cutlet sandwich, sweating, attempting to pick up service on my iPhone.

2 p.m. Back at the hotel

For many tea partiers, the journey is more important than the destination. Like Lloyd said: It's more about being a part of the crowd than it is about listening to celebrities talk about ordinary Americans. And it's easier to make a connection with other tea partiers when you're stuck on a bus for 10 hours than when you're all fighting to get a clear shot of Sarah Palin. As the shuttle from the National Mall turned into the Marriott Wardman Park to drop off a crowd of finished Tea Partiers, the bus driver made an impressive left-turn around a line of other tour buses. The passengers cheered louder than ever. And when they all unloaded into the lobby, they huddled around a bar television, where Glenn Beck was still on TV.

1:30 a.m. Race redux

The race issue (or "non-issue") comes up again on the shuttle, post-rally. A gentleman from Georgia, who sat for 12 hours on a bus he describes as "comfortable" to get here, is disillusioned by some of the speakers' words. "I came here for the politics and to honor our troops," the man tells me. "Some of the social issues I don't want to hear about."

Social issues "like the race stuff," he clarifies: all the talk about Abraham Lincoln, slavery, Martin Luther King Jr., and segregation that pervaded the day's speeches. "They try to make it out like it's all white people's fault," he says of a rally led by Glenn Beck, who once famously declared that Barack Obama "hates white people." But others are to blame, he tells me, one white person to another. "Like Oprah and Obama." After all, "Barack Obama is the reason that everything's messed up. And he was elected because he's black."

1 p.m. Back on the shuttle

"Ooh, my butt is sittin' on something soft," Lynchburg Tea Party Chairman Mark Lloyd says as he settles back on the shuttle. He left the Mall at noon, about an hour before the rally's conclusion. When he headed down to the Mall, Lloyd said he wasn't excited to see the speakers — "I've seen them before" — but was excited to see the crowd. "This many people spending this much money and this much time to come here — that's where our power is."

After the rally, Lloyd said he "wasn't disappointed."

"There were a lot of 'em," he says. "I just wish I had the time to sit and talk with some of them." Most people at the rally seemed to come, sit, listen, and leave.

"It's a place to get a little acceptance," Lloyd says of the Tea Party. "To be around people who understand . . . For so long conservatives have been made to feel isolated, to feel that their opinions are wrong." At the worst point, "for many years, due to political correctness, conservatives really began to doubt themselves."

Now, they've got a voice booming across the National Mall telling them that they're right and good and honorable, that they're the best people in the world. But Lloyd says conservatives need more than just reassurance. "Conservatism is about more than waving a sign a wearing a funny hat," Lloyd says. "sometimes we get caught up in the rallies. And we need to go to work."

12:30 p.m. Sweaty

At 10 a.m., the rally kicks off. Brief recap: obelisks: straight, soaring, noble. Faith. Family. God. Moms. Glitter sound effects. Glenn Beck's pre-recorded, omniscient-God voice. "Americans are the best people on Earth." Martin Luther King jr. Bitterness. God.

Tea party reaction: sweating. Elderly women in wheelchairs unable to part crowd to get to the Porta Potty. Mark Lloyd sips from a Camelback. Most people are sitting on folding chairs where they can't even see the Sarah Palin Jumbotron. Several people are splayed on the ground napping in the little space they can find. Nobody has signed except for the guy who wants to remind everyone that Mom was a communist. Estimated number of Tea Partiers present: a zillion. And they love it!

11:00 a.m. Race

"The Tea Party has taken so much flack from the race-baiting community," Lloyd tells me. "Those who call us racist — they didn't understand Martin Luther King's dream. Or they're trying to spin the dream."

"Race just gives them a way to put us in a different group," Lloyd explains. "Just because we look a little bit different. Race isn't an issue. Their self-esteem is wrapped up in racial hatred."

9:45 a.m. The round-up

A Schmaltzy piano tune plays across the mall. Photographs of America
play on the big screen. A cheer erupts in the crowd. "I think it's
starting!" a woman announces. "It's a flyover!" Everyone looks to the
skies.

A flock of geese flies over the reflecting pool.

9:30 a.m. Overheard on the shuttle to the mall

"I went to a party in Georgetown last night. We were told it was a redneck party. I showed up in my cut up flannel shirt. . . . It was actually a pajama party."

"What do you think of that Michele Bachmann? I don't know if I want to vote for her or marry her."

"What's that big government bureaucracy building over there? We need to
abolish that and tear it down."

9 a.m. Real America

Mark Lloyd arrived in D.C. in fairly neutral gear for a tea partier: khaki shorts, a blue and yellow striped rugby shirt, and a khaki Texas cap. Lloyd moved to Lynchburg from Texas in 1993---tea party state to tea party state. "In the tea party movement, there are a couple states that are seen as being on the tipping edge," Lloyd says. "that would be Texas and Virginia."

Decidedly not on the tipping edge---Massachusetts, home state of Lloyd's wife of thirty years, who is at home in Lynchburg. "You know what Massachusetts gave us? Scott Brown," Lloyd says. "They said he was a conservative. He's a liberal."

I ask Lloyd if he has an opinion on browns infamous Cosmo cover. "I don't care about his pecs," Lloyd says. "I care about him voting conservative." as for Lloyd's wife---she didn't skip the event out of any loyalty to her liberal former state. "She has been converted. She no longer thinks like someone from Massachusetts---she thinks like an American." Today, "she's home with the grandbabies," Lloyd says.

8 a.m.: Breakfast with Americans for Prosperity

The Americans for Prosperity invited the Lynchburg Tea Party to a white-
linen seated breakfast at the Mariott Wardman Park to gear up for the rally. They're joined by hundreds more ralliers and Virginia political luminaries. When I enter the ballroom, an AFP rep approaches me to ask what news organization I'm with. "I just wanted to make sure you're not some blogger or something." (Whoops.)

Statements eliciting woos and boos from he crowd this morning:

Woos:

"There ought to be a Virginia flag out there." -Va. state Sen. Mark Obershain

"...Going to the Lincoln Memorial, that'll be fine: but there's a
Jefferson Memorial!" --Former Va. senator/governor George Allen

"...America is the best country in the world"  --Allen

"...Bob McDonnel" --Obershain

"...Ken 'Don't Tread on Me' Cuccinelli" --Obershain

"...they're bitter and angry and so what? Well let them be bitter and
angry" --AFP president Tim Phillips

"...don't keep the faith, share the faith" --Phillips

"line-item veto" --Allen

"the next one of these needs to be in Virginia" --Allen.

On the 80s: "we were the rebels then. We were the insurgents." --Allen

"...is there any law saying that conservatives can't meet up with three
to four thousand of their closest friends and stand at the Lincoln
memorial?" --Phillips

Boos:

"...porkulus" --Phillips

"The governmet spends 30,000 dollars a year on each household...
working, nonworking, legal, illegal." --Obershain

"How do you feel being on this side of the Potomac?" --Obershain

6:45 a.m.: En Route

I called Mark Lloyd, Chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party, and caught him on the road. Lloyd and 53 other Lynchburg Tea Partiers boarded a bus at 3:30 this morning in order to make a 7:30 a.m. breakfast date with Americans for Prosperity; a caravan of cars from Lynchburg is set to hit Washington later. After three hours in a full bus, Lynchburg tea partiers aren't exactly feeling the spirit yet.

"Most people are just waking up," Lloyd says. As for Lloyd, sleep was one of the many sacrifices he made to bring Lynchburg to D.C.: "I pretty much laid down and rolled over and got back up."