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She's living proof that no matter your goals and no matter your age, you can still make your dreams come true. Nonagenarian Joy Ryan is living a full life and has become the oldest person in history to visit all 63 US National Parks.
Joy and her grandson, Brad Ryan (41), trekked across the United States together over the past few years. Their goal to visit every single national park recently became a reality with a final trip to the National Park of American Samoa.
“The National Park of American Samoa is the only US national park south of the equator and our most remote park,” Brad said on Grandma Joy’s Road Trip, the Instagram page they created to document their travels.
"We defied erroneous assumptions about the limitations of aging. We defied financial and logistical constraints. We even defied a pandemic. And you might have noticed that I accidentally made Grandma Joy the superstar I always knew her to be," he added.
It all began seven and a half years ago when Grandma Joy told Brad that she regretted how few trips she had taken during her life. The pair hadn’t spoken for years after Brad’s parents went through an ugly divorce and he distanced himself from his paternal grandmother.
"We were estranged for almost a decade when I finally decided to reach out to her and try to heal that relationship. I felt hurt for my mom and I felt betrayed equally as my mom felt betrayed," Brad told People Magazine.
"She showed up at my sister's wedding pretty much needing to be carried in," he says, referring to his grandma's fragile health at the time. "I felt horrible because we were very close when I was a young boy."
Brad decided to squash the drama and make the most of the time he had left with Grandma Joy, who was suffering from fatigue and severe weight loss.
"When I learned she'd never seen the great wildernesses of America – deserts, mountains, oceans, you name it – I thought that was something that would haunt me if I didn't intervene in some way," he shared in an interview last year.
Soon after their reconciliation, Joy got a spring in her step and they started their travels.
Brad says his grandmother always had an adventurous spirit but, "her connection to the world was really through watching the Travel Channel."
After a small hike together in Ohio, they began taking one trip at a time. Brad, who works as a veterinarian, began traveling with his then 85-year-old grandmother in 2015, first visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
They were both bitten by the travel bug and the pair then made it their goal to visit every single national park.
They’ve made memories checking out volcanoes in Hawaii, have watched bears catch salmon in Alaska and even slept under the stars at Joshua Tree National Park in California.
“It’s beyond anything I could ever have imagined in my life,” Joy (93) says of the experience. "I'm really blessed to have a grandson like I have," she adds. "I wouldn't trade him for anybody."
Grandma Joy's Road Trip has more than 81 000 followers who’ve joined them on their adventure of a lifetime. They’ve also received funding from various sponsors to make it all possible.
Now, after seven years, Joy and Brad have reached the end of their journey, but what next?
If their Instagram bio is anything to go by, there’s no slowing down just yet – next stop: Kenya!
"He's taken me places that I see on the Travel Channel, and I never dreamt I'd end up there," Joy says. "It's been the most amazing journey, and I've been able to see wondrous things."
SOURCES: WASHINGTONPOST.COM; EDITION.CNN.COM; PEOPLE.COM; DISPATCH.COM; CBSNEWS.COM
