Facilitator Lena Richardson said goodbye to Jenna Weiss-Berman and went off to visit her friend’s family in Tekamah, NE, a farming community which is north of Omaha. She found that contrary to some people’s ideas about Nebraska that northeast Nebraska is green and lush.

Bev Lydick and her husband Wally and their son Chance hosted Lena in their home. Here Bev is pictured with Chance. Successive generations of the Lydick family have been farming in Nebraska for 150 years.

In addition, Bev is also a newspaper reporter and story-collector herself and she arranged some StoryCorps interviews with town residents, which Lena conducted with the field recording equipment. One interview was between Bev and her best friend Mona. They met in a guitar class when Bev was seven months pregnant with her first child and over the last 34 years, have formed wacky clubs, done community theater, and adventured on the road together to name just a few of their escapades.

We also love the fact that in Omaha, you can see popular bands at half the cost you could in a larger city and in a venue a quarter of the size. We’ve seen some great bands like Animal Collective (below) at an old gymnastics center called the Sokol Auditorium, and we plan to see more.

The Bemis Center (below) is an amazing arts center where artists from around the world live and work through a residency program. It has basically become Omaha’s center for contemporary art, and boasts four gallery spaces of its residents’ work.

Facilitator Jenna Weiss-Berman likes to have her eyelashes extended at the salon across the street from our hotel (pictured above). Just kidding, but she could if she wanted to. It’s an "Omaha first."

Mary Bamesburger interviewed her good friend Charles Scudder Jr. about folksinging. He told stories ranging from church singing to how folk legend and friend Pete Seeger helped him tune his first guitar. He also sang bits of songs, such as "Ragtime Cowboy Joe." Charles invited facilitator Lena Richardson to a meeting of the Omaha Folk Song Society, where she had fun listening and singing along to more songs, including "The Omaha Song." At the meeting, Lena also got to see a StoryCorps participant from the day before there–Marion Fey–who sang a duet with Charles.

Ky-Antre Compton, 11, and Stuart Chittenden, both residents of Omaha, came in to interview each other. They met through the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Midlands program. Ky-Antre thought that spending time with Stuart would be boring at first, but now he describes "Mr. Stuart" as the "best role model" he’s ever had. (You can hear an excerpt from Ky-Antre and Stuart’s interview here.)

Christine Besen, Mary Pat Champion, and Diane Watson (left to right), all from Omaha, came in to remember their fourth sister, Laura Ann Watson Dalton, who was murdered eight years ago in Iowa City. "Every time I see a butterfly," said Diane, "I feel like it’s Laura checking in on me."

Lena catches up with old friends Bindu and Ravi while eating delicious Vietnamese food in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.

Jenna’s friend Sarah tells us to "talk to the hand."

Jenna and Lena hang tough in Chicago.

After lunch in Chicago, Jenna and Lena got to driving. While making their way through Iowa, this sign made the facilitators feel close to home.