Road trip with the grandson
Joy, 93: “You feel younger when you do this”
Road trip queen: Grandma Joy has visited all 63 national parks in the USA
© @grandmajoysroadtrip
Grandma Joy, 93, made history as the oldest person in the world to have seen all of America’s national parks. Always by her side: grandson Brad, 42.
She spent her first night in a tent in the Great Smoky Mountains at the age of 85, and it was raining cats and dogs. That was in 2015, on the first trip with her grandson Brad. Because the air mattress broke, Joy slept on the floor. Keeping her spirits up, she kept going: rolling down the dunes of Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park like a child, hiking in the Grand Canyon and Hawaii’s volcanoes, visiting Joshua Tree and Glacier National Parks, the Everglades, Yellowstone, and admired the giant trees in California’s Redwood National Park. Skiing and rafting in Alaska, ziplining in West Virginia, a moose attack in Montana—nothing was too dangerous for Joy. The finale of her journey through all 63 national parks in the USA took place in the South Pacific: on American Samoa, 7,000 miles from her home in Ohio.
She was encouraged to go on these adventures by her grandson Brad, a veterinarian who shares their travels together on the Instagram account @grandmajoysroadtrip documented. For him, it was the suicide of a former classmate that prompted him to approach his grandmother with his travel idea. Because she had never seen a mountain or an ocean, he called his grandma and asked, “Would you like to see your first mountain?” She only had one question in return: “What time will you pick me up?”
Before she packed her suitcase for the first time, Joy had already experienced a lot of suffering: she not only survived her husband, but also her three sons. In 2008 she became very ill herself and Covid-19 also hit her hard. She says she has outlived so many friends that she has lost track. It’s also why, at age 93, Joy is living a more fulfilling life than most younger people: she knows it can be over at any moment. That’s why she accepted her grandson’s offer without hesitation: “Without him, I would be sitting on the porch and crocheting,” she told USA Today. And she didn’t want to do that.
The two have covered more than 80,000 kilometers on their road trips through the USA and have become best friends. At the end of her trip through the national parks, Joy told ABC News: “It was an exciting and wonderful journey. You feel younger when you do this.” And that’s exactly why she won’t lean back contentedly in her rocking chair. On the contrary, grandma and grandchildren are already planning their next adventure: Joy would like to see the highest mountain peaks on all continents. Next month we’re going to Mount Kilimanjaro.
“It’s never too late,” Joy knows today. “And if you only have a week left, what the heck? What would you have had if you’d stayed home that week?” But Brad also learned something from traveling with his grandmother: “She showed me: If you can climb a mountain, do it now.”
Sources used: Instagram, USA Today, ABC News, Washington Post