TERRE HAUTE, Indiana — As we approach Terre Haute, I expect to sense the growing tension, an accumulation of dread and fear and curiosity. Signs of the impending execution will begin to appear at least a few miles out, I imagine. Homemade posters, bumper stickers, traffic jams.

In reality, the highway is the same as in Indianapolis, in Richmond, in Dayton, Ohio. There is no increased activity or any visible signs of what is about to happen. The only perceptible change is the knot beginning to form in my stomach. I had managed to ward it off for the past two days, but it is back.

As soon as we exit the highway onto Route 41, there is a flashing road sign telling PRO DEMONSTRATORS to take one route and ANTI DEMONSTRATORS to take another. Apparently there will be no mingling of views outside the federal penitentiary. After some driving around, we finally find the compound. It lies to the southwest of central Terre Haute, not far from a small residential community and a half mile from a main strip-mall drag. The longest of the prison's three sides is bordered by Justice Road.

The buildings are set so far from the perimeter that you can hardly see them, making the whole something less than the imposing structure I had imagined, although it houses some 1,270 inmates and another 400 or so in an adjacent minimum security camp. Twenty of these are on death row. Tomorrow there will be 19. The question I had been asking myself endlessly at the beginning of our trip comes back to me now. What are we doing here?

The "media circus," as it has been called a hundred times, is more like a small carnival. But an orderly one. Television trucks are lined neatly on the lawn in front of the prison near a field of cheerful, white tents. It might be a county fair or a school science fair, albeit one that has attracted a gargantuan media presence.

Protesters bring puppets of Jesus and Uncle Sam

A relatively small contingent of anti-death penalty protesters, 30 or so, parade along the road near the main entrance as we drive around trying to find a place to park the RV. They wear brightly colored T-shirts and carry signs saying the usual things: Stop State Killing. Why do we kill someone who killed someone to teach someone that killing is wrong?

We decide to take a shot at getting press credentials. Having only planned this trip Thursday, we had not registered beforehand like any sensible, prepared journalists would have. The media registration office is 10 minutes from closing for good when we stroll in at nearly eight. Unfortunately, although Andy has an old Court TV press pass with him, I have nothing, not even a business card. To obtain the official Bureau of Prisons pass, I will need something with my photo and company name on it, the woman behind the desk tells me, sympathetic to my plight.

She then proceeds to describe a number of things I might do to fabricate such identification. Incredibly, she agrees to hold the office open for us until we can return with the goods.

We jump back into the RV and, following her directions, race to the Super K-Mart. There, using a Kodak do-it-yourself scanner, we cobble together a laughable combination of my New York State driver's license and part of Andy's business card, blown up accidentally to five by seven. One self-laminating kit and two careening turns later, we are back in the press office holding the most ridiculously poor fake ID ever made. And jumbo size.

"Looks great," she says, and hands over the official prison pass. She locks the door behind us as we leave, making us, it seems, the last reporters to register.

In the parking lot, the anti-death penalty protestors have gathered in front of the Journey of Hope bus. The group was started by a man whose grandmother was murdered but who still opposes capital punishment. They have two giant puppets, one of Jesus and one of Uncle Sam, which they later try to dismantle and wedge through the door of our RV when we offer them a ride. The demonstrators are professionals. They interview themselves while I hold the mike.

"Whenever you talk about abolition, people constantly say, well, you'd think different if it were your daughter. Well, the fact is many people do not think different when it happens to their family," says a Unitarian minister who is wearing a headband and short, gray ponytail. "You cannot breed healing out of violence any more than you can breed pit bulls and get canaries."

Catherine's fake ID

Wandering back toward the front gate, we encounter a slightly hungrier, more evidently religious group of protestors. They seem to make no distinction between talking to themselves and talking to others. We are greeted with the chewed-off ends of sentences started elsewhere. If there are pro-execution demonstrators here, we never see them.

Amazingly, two different officers scrutinize my fake ID at the front gate and still let me through. I can only hope they have better security inside the prison than out. I am glad to be within the perimeter where, oddly, there is more room to breathe. A wide expanse of grass separates the tents, and the chaos of the local TV station trucks, which must remain outside, seems remote.

We catch the first press briefing. It is a military, stiff affair. The spokesman speaks dispassionately about McVeigh's activities over the past few days (watching TV, sleeping regularly), his last meal (two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream). But what strikes me most is his use of the inmate's full name. Timothy James McVeigh. It is impossible to hear it spoken that way without thinking of his parents choosing it, saying it for the first time.

We are beginning to unravel and stumble around. Walking back from the penitentiary alongside the highway in the dark Andy walks smack into a street sign.

"I am permanently thirsty," he says later.

It is 3:30, and, there is nothing to do but wait.

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