(pleasant piano music) (relaxed rock music) Up next on "Nebraska Stories," we explore the state on the move, starting in a canoe, by rail on one of the biggest steam engines in operation, on two wheels for the Nacho Ride, upbeat music by car on the bricks and concrete that built a dream of the future, upbeat music and on horseback in the Nebraska National Forest.

upbeat music (upbeat guitar music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat music) (tranquil music) (windmill creaking) MIKE FORSBERG: Today we struck out across the plains, and we're really sort of starting that long slow glide downhill.

I love the mountains, I miss 'em already, but I'm in love with the plains.

(gentle guitar music) NARRATOR: Photographer Mike Forsberg and filmmaker Pete Stegen are in the midst of an adventure.

(water gurgling) They're following a mythical drop of water over 1,300 miles from its high mountain source in Wyoming, through its journey down the Platte River until it joins the Missouri.

It'll take almost two months, on bike, on foot, in a canoe, but why?

MIKE: We are primarily made of water.

All life on this planet depends on water.

I want us to know where our water comes from.

(water trickling) (footsteps splatting) NARRATOR: They've traveled for 35 days, overcome every challenge, and at last, they've made it to the Platte.

A braided river, meandering east through a state named for the river itself, Nebraska, flat water.

A river full of surprises.

(gentle music) MIKE: Well, that's a new one.

PETE STEGEN: Yep, it's gone.

MIKE: What just happened, Pete?

(water splashing) PETE: Well, I had a little quicksand issue.

And we only got one Croc.

(water rushing) MIKE: So that's what we had to go over, and get around, anyway, not go over, go over it and you're dead.

PETE: You can get around it one way and do maybe about a quarter mile, maybe even half a mile portage.

(soft music) (footsteps crunching) MIKE: Light as a feather and stick together.

(soft music) PETE: Just like walking a dog.

(water splashing) (water trickling) (gentle music) PETE: I need you.

(water splashing) MIKE: Whoa.

(laughing) MIKE: I got it, I got it.

(water rushing) MIKE: Pete's looking for a opening in the dense cattails so we can get around this thing, and I'm walking the boat slowly, hauling our gear.

PETE: Here's our path.

(water rushing) MIKE: Shoulda brought the machete.

PETE: I don't see what the big deal is.

Found a way.

(canoe screeching) (water rushing) MIKE: Nice work, Pete.

PETE: You too.

(soft music) (water trickling) (geese honking) NARRATOR: And then, the biggest obstacle of all.

MIKE: Eventually, we weren't in a river anymore, we were in a lake.

The river becomes a lake, and things are going well, and the wind starts to pick up.

(tense guitar music) So we got waves in our boat, we're going across these waves, so a little bounce in the bow.

(lively music) NARRATOR: They had entered 22 mile long, Lake McConaughy.

PETE: When we entered it, from the river, you cannot even see close to the dam, it's massive.

Once these waves started happening, we started thinking, maybe this isn't safe.

(water rushing) NATE: And then this gate swings open and closed like this.

NARRATOR: Nate Nielsen, foreman of Kingsley Dam, portages Mike and Pete past Lake McConaughy, over the earthen dam, and sends them on their way.

NATE NIELSEN: It was a lotta work for those guys.

They had a lotta fun, I think, but they were working hard.

NARRATOR: There are surprises hidden beneath the water.

PETE: I picked it up, pulled it out, and sand started pouring out of it.

Looked at it, and held it, and thought, whoa, this is a bison horn.

When was the last time that bison have been around here?

(soft music) PETE: Before we started putting these bridges, before we started getting a handle on the wild, the wild was here, and it was everywhere.

(water sloshing) There's so much before me, there's been so much before I have stepped in this sand.

(tranquil music) (water splashing) NARRATOR: On day 55, the last full day of their journey, the river has one more surprise for them.

(thunder rumbling) MIKE: I had the tent set up and darkness had fallen, and there was lightning flashing off in the distance.

PETE: It's almost like it was a show for us, you know?

It was building and growing and lightning.

(thunder crashing) (rain pattering) MIKE: That was probably the most intense storm that I've ever been in.

The walls were sucking in and blowing out and sucking in, and it was crazy.

(thunder rumbling) (rain splashing) And we woke up the next morning, and everything was glistening.

(bag clunking) (water trickling) MIKE: The river had risen almost to flood stage, and the clear river with braided sandbars that we had been paddling through for several days prior, all of the sudden was a chocolate milkshake with huge piles of foam and huge upwellings coming from below, just big belches of water coming up, and we sort of looked at each other and thought, well, got like 14 miles to go, and we can't stop now.

PETE: This is amazing to see this.

Well, it seemed like the water was saying, you're done.

Time's up, you followed me all the way to the mouth, time to get out.

(tranquil music) NARRATOR: They have reached the place where the Platte River becomes the Missouri.

MIKE: I think we're there.

(paddles clacking) MIKE: Nice work.

PETE: This river is me, this river is you, and if you live in this basin, it's you, you should care where your water comes from.

I think it's so fundamental that we almost overlook it.

(canoe clattering) MIKE: We have this tiny little wedge of water, that we all need to survive, and we all need to be able to share it, and we all need to be able to understand it.

That's a pretty powerful thing.

(water rushing) (tranquil music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (train honking) (guitar playing) [Narrator] Pure power, grace that defies the tons of steel and iron in it's frame.

A sound that demands respect and brings out fond memories.

(train honking) It's a great symbol for America, loud and powerful.

Getting the job done.

Just plain big.

(soft western music) No other steam locomotive in the world is bigger and still underpowered.

This is the Challenger engine number 3985 gliding along the rails of the Union Pacific.

(train honking) What makes this trip so special is the locomotive.

That's the beating heart of any train.

At the head end of this train is a one of a kind steam powered marvel called the Challenger.

The railroad that runs her, the Union Pacific, only takes her out for special occasions.

Well, have you seen it?

It's great.

It's, you know, it's all noise and smoke and grease and every, and it's huge.

I mean, you know, it's from the days when if you wanted to go faster, you made it bigger.

That's how it worked.

It's the only one like it in the world and so it's worth taking a look at.

[Mary] It's an experience.

It appeals to all the senses.

You've got different smells and different sounds and so it's an experience of all the sensations.

[Narrator] Number 3985 was delivered in 1943 built for hauling freight from North Platte Nebraska, As far west as Utah.

(guitar music) The railroad gave an identity towns like Lexington at Ogallala, Gothenburg, Cozad, and Fremont.

Places where the railroads, coal shoots, and water towers kept the trains running on schedule.

(guitar music) So when the last and the largest of the steam locomotives heads back east across Nebraska to historic Omaha, it's a journey to the spiritual home of cross-country train travel.

(guitar music) This is the first leg.

The two day trip across the state for dignitaries, railroad employees and business associates.

Even at the crack of dawn, people drag the kids out of bed just to see her get underway.

(guitar music) [Reed] To be involved with this program is just every little boy's dream come true.

(guitar music) [Narrator] It's a long open stretch.

After Oshkosh headed for the wide open spaces of Nebraska Prairie (Train horn blaring) She barely slows until right outside of North Platte, a town that defined the railroad on the Great Plains.

It's the home of the busiest rail yard in the world, where the Union Pacific divides it's freight trains and reassigns cars heading east and west.

(train crossing bell) This place saw the best days of steam power and its sudden painful end.

(train crossing bell) Only two challenger locomotive survived.

One sits in a park in North Platte, Nebraska.

(guitar playing) The other one, number 3985, is pulling out of town on this beautiful, cool autumn morning, just like she did 50 years ago.

(guitar music) The novelty, the nostalgia, can still bring out 500 people in Kearney, Nebraska on a Thursday afternoon.

(guitar music) In a day when it's hard to get kids away from video games and parents to turn off their computers, they come and they stare at a shrieking, howling antique of a beast.

Heading back to the home of the Union Pacific in Omaha.

The trip takes on a little more leisurely pace.

The passengers and crew both wish it could last a little longer [Reed] But there's just something magical and neat about this.

Especially if you're actually running 'em and and riding 'em and handling 'em.

It's, it's a just a great feeling.

You just feel like you're going back in time.

(guitar music) [Narrator] Their destination is the hometown of the Union Pacific as it has been since 1863.

Just across the tracks stands, the Union Station of Omaha.

No more scheduled arrivals and departures, but inside this Art Deco Cathedral of the Rails, the displays of the Western Heritage Museum capture a glamorous past and more leisurely time that people wish to remember.

(guitar music) [Dick] It's a lot of fun being up in the cab.

I've seen an awful lot of the railroad out that cab (guitar music) [Mary] Well built for their time and still knocking them dead after all these years.

[Narrator] So that's why Omaha feels like home for Challenger number 3985 when she pulls up alongside of Union Station.

She seems to belong here.

(guitar music) (western song about Challenger) (western song about Challenger) (birds chirping) (people unloading bicycles) PHIL WOLFE: All my life I tried to promote physical activity and physical fitness.

So, being retired now, it's just in my blood to promote activity.

(bike pump clicks) WOLFE: Do you do it for the exercise?

Do you do it for the socializing?

Do you do it for the nachos?

- [Woman in Hat] All of the above.

- [Woman in Helmet] Mm-hmm.

WOLFE: I went on a bike ride in Mineola, Iowa, just on the other side of Council Bluffs.

It was their five-hundredth Taco Ride.

They had a big turn out.

I think almost a thousand people.

We just had a blast.

I thought, "Why don't we have a ride like this, down in Lincoln?

It can't be that hard to do."

I've got four children at home, and they didn't think it would happen.

(people laughing) Now they go, "Pretty cool what you've done, Dad."

The ride started out with just four of us that committed.

I took signs out and put them in bicycle shops, coffee shops.

We typically average about two hundred riders per night.

- [Woman in Purple] It's all about balancing.

You bike, and then you stop and eat tacos.

So we're balanced, we're even here.

(wheels whirring down the road) (piano music with hand clapping) WOLFE: This is a social ride.

This is all about meeting new people, making friends.

(piano music with hand clapping) WOLFE: This year, Dan has simplified the menu, to kind of streamline it a little bit.

Offering nachos of course, and tacos.

DAN: We used to run a pretty full menu.

And now we just do tacos and nachos.

I think the best night we did last year, was nine hundred and seventy tacos, and two hundred and sixty orders of nachos, and that was in three and a half hours.

(bell rings) DAN: Today I made ninety pounds of hamburger, just for the tacos alone.

You order, we yell out your name, you come get it.

Then they just sit down with people they don't even know and by the time it's done, a bunch of friends were made and you might see them two weeks later all riding together.

- [Woman in Dark Pink] We were able to have a nice leisurely ride and have good conversation.

- [Woman in Green] Mm-hmm.

It was great.

- [Woman in Hot Pink] And saw some wildlife.

- [Woman in Dark Pink] We did, we saw a beautiful deer.

It was wonderful.

It was a nice ride.

WOLFE: It is just a hodgepodge of people who ride, and it's really neat.

This is a sport that can be enjoyed by everybody.

You could do this in your neighborhood too.

This isn't rocket science, just get some people to ride in your neighborhood.

Commit to it, you could develop your own ride in your part of town.

(Bicycles riding past) * Music Gary Andersen: The interstate is nice but it almost removes you from Nebraska, whereas when highway 30 the Lincoln highway, you went through every little town and you got to see what was going on in the countryside much better.

Narrator: If you owned a car in the early 1900's, good luck finding a road to drive on.

You could follow the old wagon trails but a little rain turned those roads to mud.

In September 1912, an Indiana man named Carl Graham Fisher imagined the future: a transcontinental highway paved with concrete.

He knew he couldn't do it alone, so he enlisted the support of local businesses and communities along the route.

And then the cement companies pitched in with something called "seedling miles."

Bob Stubblefield: Cement companies donated the cement and local people helped make the seedling miles, to make people realize how great it would be if we had a hard surfaced road coast-to-coast.

Pam Andersen: The idea was that if people actually had the experience of driving on a paved road, and saw the difference between mud or gravel or dirt and sailing smoothly along concrete, they would clamor for more concrete and it worked, obviously it worked.

Andersen: Most of it was done with horses the pavement on highway 30 and I can remember original highway, each lane was only 8 foot wide so it was comparatively narrow road.

Narrator: On November 3, 1915, Grand Island became second city on the route and the first in Nebraska to complete a concrete mile.

Two weeks later came Kearney.

Not every community used concrete.

Elkhorn, Nebraska has the longest stretch of original brick along the Lincoln Highway.

Built in the 1920's, this section of the highway is listed on the national register of historic places.

Soon after, gas stations, motels, and diners began springing up along the brand new highway.

Places like shady bend, just outside of Grand Island.

Craig Woodward: It was called the motel, but there were units back there and that was a pretty big deal but it also was a gas station and like I said, the grocery store.

Woodward: I think there just weren't places to stop and so either you had to go to a large city that had a hotel or sleep in the car.

Stubblefield: It was really a big deal back in those days to be connected with the Lincoln highway.

There was the Lincoln highway cigar manufacturers.

There was Lincoln highway tires.

There was Lincoln highway oil.

And everybody kind of wanted to get in on the act.

Narrator: In the 1920's, the federal government began using numbers to designate highways.

The Lincoln highway became highway 30.

And some of the magic went away.

Stubblefield: In the late 20's, when the federal government designated it as a number highway 30 rather than the Lincoln highway, it kind of lost its identity when they gave it the number.

When it comes to the Lincoln highway and preserving it, you'll find more enthusiasm for local people to put up plaques in their particular little area than you will boarder to boarder.

Narrator: The heyday of the Lincoln Highway lasted until the 1960's when the interstate was built just parallel to the old highway.

Woodward: When the interstate went through, then we saw marked decline in the traffic that it just was not there and everybody traveled the interstate.

Andersen: The interstate it's just a business route.

And so that's why to me it doesn't seem like that's really what Nebraska is.

You drive down highway 30 here locally and compare what you see from highway 30 to what you see on the interstate, its two different worlds.

(upbeat piano music) (horses neighing) NARRATOR: Every fall, people gather at the Nebraska National Forest near Halsey for the popular 4-H trail ride.

BILL RIGGS: When I first wanted to come, I was kind of scared but yet I wanted to see what the country was and the uniqueness is the different people that you meet and see.

And you learn so much about our community, our state even.

BRUCE TRELFER: This trail ride's been going for 20 years.

Most of us that are still involved on the committee were at that first meeting 20 years ago.

(metal clanking) The trail ride became a logical thing to do.

We talked about where do you have it.

Well, we got a state 4-H camp right here.

People come in on Friday night and are able to stall their horses here and kind of use this as a central point.

All of our rides kind of start from here and come back to here.

Part of it's the solitude and being close to their horses.

And some people are just campers.

(hammers clanking) NARRATOR: Their campsite is within the forest, but it's a primitive site.

Meaning it doesn't have electricity.

MAN: It's knocking.

GUY: Start from here.

MAN: No see, we gotta do this, right.

TRELFER: We hook up a pump jack on the windmill because we're not absolutely certain the wind's gonna blow and the horses need water.

Somebody had taken that pump jack apart and messed it up a little bit.

And we weren't really sure how it went back together.

Anybody got a pump jack at home?

We got some pump jack mechanics help us out and got it put back together then it worked.

(engine sputtering) (water drizzling) (slow country music) RIGGS: This morning it was cool and damp.

The horses had been penned and some of them haven't been used enough.

It's an anxiety on their part.

SUE STAAB: You're being a good girl, aren't you, Rosie?

You just needed to lunge it and take that edge off.

It's enjoyment.

It's mother-daughter time.

And there's no cell service so I have her full, undivided attention.

It's a way for us to get away and enjoy the nature.

It's beautiful out here.

NARRATOR: The riders are anxious to hit the trail.

But before they do, they pay tribute to a recently deceased friend.

TRELFER: Gary was a great cowboy.

He was a great friend.

And he's kind of the face of this trail ride for a lot of years.

But I think Gary would be with us in spirit today, I know he is.

What we're gonna do is when Dewey leads out, he's gonna lead Gary's horse out riderless.

Let's just have a moment of silence, and then we'll lead out.

(slow, mournful music) He was the face of this trail ride.

He passed away last week.

He had ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

He knew everybody, he was just a really outgoing, unique individual.

A great friend to lots and lots of people.

(dreary violin music) (horse neighing) You're in that most unique grassland in the world.

And then you're at a national forest that's planted by hand.

And then you put all these people with their horses here.

(horses neighing) We've had people from lots of different locations.

From South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming.

We've had some foreign exchange students come on this trail ride before.

(horses whinny) RIGGS: The scenery has a lot to do with it.

You can't see that along the road.

It's back behind everything.

You see all the good things.

STAAB: A lot of the same people come here and it's just an awesome group of people.

I'd enjoy seeing those people again sometime.

We just see 'em once a year.

And getting to know those people, it's just a lot of fun.

We've been here when it was snowing, when it was raining, when it was hot and we're all in t-shirts and sweating.

(horses neighing) TRELFER: I think this is about relationships.

There's no better way to spend a weekend than with horses and with people that you like.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Watch more "Nebraska Stories" on our website, Facebook and YouTube.

(upbeat music) "Nebraska Stories" is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation, and Humanities Nebraska, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.

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