Ellen reaches home

For those who have been following the story of Ellen Falterman’s latest expedition, here’s how it ended.

After rowing down the Mississippi, over to Galveston and then up the Trinity, Falterman reached her destination a little after 4 p.m. today.

The dog shown here has nothing to do with it, except its owners were on the sand bank of the river near its last bend before the bridge. They offered Falterman a Corona as she approached, and with family and friends waiting to welcome her a little further upstream, and all of them wondering what she was doing, Falterman took advantage of the invitation to stop and talk for a bit with the couple who would be the last new friends she would make on this trip. Then she climbed back in her canoe and rowed the last 400 yards or so to where her parents were waiting.

There were greetings, and photos, and smiles all around. They unloaded her canoe, and later she and her parents took the canoe to the spot where her brother’s plane went down 4 years ago to sprinkle some of his ashes into the river.