MANSFIELD, Ohio — The campground was already alive when my alarm clock rang at 7 this morning. Campers (or kampers, according to the KOA preferred spelling of all things kamping) were walking their dogs and heading to the showers.

A stunted wooden rollercoaster was visible through the top front window of the RV just above my bunk, and I realized it must be the Fantasy Island the boy told us about last night when he was checking us in. He works at the tiny amusement park during the day and at the campground at night.

We wandered around the grounds to see who had lingered after the early risers had headed back out on the road. We found Kathy and Wayne Giese. They were sitting in Coleman foldable chairs outside their poptop. A fire was smoldering its way out nearby and three small blond girls ran in and out of the shade of the camper's awning. They live just north of Chicago, and this trip to Niagara Falls is the farthest they have taken their camper yet.

Kathy complained she hadn't showered in three days, but agreed to speak to us on camera anyway, and Wayne, who was wearing a baseball cap and drinking a Labatt's, initially declined to speak to us but wound up doing the bulk of the talking.

They had followed the news about McVeigh, but professed no particular interest in his execution. Like most, they will be glad to see him go and feel he is getting what he deserves. What concerned them more than McVeigh's fate, however, was the world that brought him about. A world, as they see it, in which children are not taught morals, do not spend enough time with their parents, do not feel the firm hand of discipline on their behinds.

"Everything's way too lenient. All these younger kids shooting other kids. Where are the parents?" Wayne said, explaining that the McVeighs and the school shooters are all products of the same malfunctioning machine.

Kathy agreed. "A lot of it has to begin at home with the younger children. You teach them from very early on right from wrong, and if you teach them that on a consistent basis you have less of a chance that your child is going to grow up and hurt someone."

Parents shouldn't be afraid to spank their kids, they insisted. "Not beat the snot out of them," Kathy cautioned, but teach them strongly, firmly, physically.

"Nowadays you're not even allowed to spank your child," Wayne noted. "Not that anybody should have to abuse their child but nowadays you spank your child, they want to arrest you for it."

One of their three daughters approached during this conversation and whispered affectionately to her mother, who shooed her gently away.

"You look at the Middle East," Kathy said. "There's a lot less rape and murder there because they know what will happen to them if they commit those crimes. You steal something and they cut your hand off, you murder somebody, they're going to kill you too. A lot of people need that boundary."

That boundary did nothing to stop Timothy McVeigh, I thought. He knew what awaited him, and he has repeatedly expressed his readiness. But perhaps he was different in some way? An anomaly, a monster.

"168 people," Wayne said, and I was struck by how known this number is, how significant. In the past 24 hours, being in the bomber's homeland, I have been so focused on McVeigh and his family and neighbors that his victims have faded temporarily into the background. But Wayne and Kathy have not forgotten them.

"Think about that," Wayne said. "A hundred and sixty-eight," and for a second the three of us sat in a stunned silence, as if hearing the number for the first time.

We said goodbye to the Gieses and finally got out on the road. After our inept wanderings around the greater Buffalo area yesterday, we had almost forgotten that we were heading somewhere in particular and not just driving in circles.

The Shasta Sprite seems ready for the open road. Cruising on local byways, on the cracked asphalt of small upstate towns, the RV rattles and shakes as if it is about to break apart into a thousand tiny bits of simulated wood paneling and formica countertop. But at 70 miles per hour it is a bearable, if not comfortable ride, and we breeze down Interstate 90 through New York's wine country. Mile after mile of the short, gnarled grape vines and occasional glimpses to the west of the blue expanse of Lake Erie. The lake is so vast that at times it seems to rise skyward like a range of cornflower mountains.

Yesterday, as we were trying to find our way into Pendleton, we came across Lockport Road.

"Lockport Road!" I shouted, grateful for a significant landmark at last. In their book, American Terrorist, Michel and Herbeck noted that in 1987, when Timothy McVeigh bought his first new car, a Chevrolet Geo Spectrum, he raced it home along Lockport Road, a straightaway, at 100 miles per hour. I told Andy this and he slammed his foot to the pedal in an attempt to recreate the event.

"Yeah, we're going 50," he said. It was a nice idea.

Today, we are just across the border into Ohio when three deer saunter leisurely onto the highway. Andy sees them and hits the brakes, and the weight of the RV surges forward against the strain. They scamper safely across to the other side, but we realize how difficult it would be to stop this four-ton machine going at highway speed.

"The brakes," Andy says, "are unremarkable."

In the afternoon, it is all highway. So much green. Weathered red farmhouses and rusty silos standing tall over the land. It blurs past for hours and we become calm for the first time in two days. Everything is alright out here. Everyone is safe. We pass the time with an interminable string of technical problems related to laptops and cellphones, microphones, power converters. They are small, solvable annoyances, and I am nearly grateful for them.

We drive across the Cuyahoga River, which winds almost imperceptibly beneath a cushion of trees. Is that the one that caught fire? We debate this. It was a long time ago, anyway. No fires today. A clear, cool, perfect day. No catastrophes. No explosions. Only little things. Little packaged problems. Columbus before nightfall. Shortly the search will begin for another place to plant the pinwheel.

Read next journal entry from Bellville, Ohio