Grandmother and Grandson's Epic Road Trip

At 92 years old Joy Ryan is climbing mountains, sleeping in tents and paddling through rapids. It all began eight years ago when her grandson, Brad Ryan, asked her to go on a camping trip with him. At the time, Joy was in her mid-80s, working a minimum wage job at a deli in Ohio and she never had the opportunity to travel. She had been looking at the same scenery for over six decades since she had married at 18 and settled in Ohio to raise a family.

 

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She had told Brad how much she wanted to see the world, so when he was planning a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, he brought her along. They drove seven hours to the campground, arriving at 2 AM in the pouring rain. Joy held an umbrella as Brad set up the tent and the air mattress. During the night Joy fell off the mattress but laughed. “Don’t worry about the small stuff – that’s my philosophy. If you can’t stay on the mattress, stay on the ground. And that’s what I did.”

Brad was experiencing his own challenges at the time and realized how much they both needed each other and this kind of adventure in their lives. They decided to visit all 63 national parks together. During the countless hours of driving across the country, Brad absorbed his grandmother’s life wisdom and some of the optimism and resilience that she exudes every day.

“Everybody has hardships,” Joy said. “I lost my husband to cancer in 1994 and one of my three sons to cancer in 2004. In 2005, my youngest son died of a drug overdose. Brad’s father is my only surviving child. Traveling with Brad has changed my outlook. I’ve realized that there isn’t much difference between the old and the young. We have a lot of the same ideas and thoughts.”

Joy climbed her first mountain at age 85 and didn’t stop until she and her grandson reached their last national park.

Before their first adventure in 2015, Brad and his grandmother had been estranged since his parents divorced almost a decade earlier. Joy supported Brad’s father through the ordeal while Brad felt badly for his mother and didn’t speak to his grandmother for years.

At a family wedding years later, Brad saw how weak and fragile his grandmother had become and was overcome with guilt for the rift in their relationship. “Seeing her, I thought, wow – this is going to be the guilt that I am going to have to carry around for the rest of my life. I didn’t expect to see her again.” But fortunately, Joy made a miraculous recovery and Brad called her one day to ask her how to make banana bread. They started reconnecting with frequent phone calls and then a small hike during which Joy told Brad how much she regretted not seeing more of the world. That’s when Brad had the idea to invite his grandmother on a camping trip.

Since then, they have traveled almost 50,000 miles together. Halfway through their journey, they set up an Instagram account (Grandma Joy’s Road Trip) where they’ve been documenting their journey up and through their last stop at the National Park of American Samoa.

But their adventures are far from over. Joy just got her first passport and would love to visit Ireland; Brad wants to show her Africa.

Connection

Reading their story reminded me so much of my own grandmother. Until her very last days, she was stronger and more adventurous than anyone I knew. She not only raised a Jewish family in a time when you could be fired for being Jewish, she passed on her love and her passion for Judaism to her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Me and my grandmother

The connection we have with our grandparents is irreplaceable. It connects us to the generations that have come before us and inspires us to pass on that legacy to our own children. I feel so blessed that I had such a close connection to my grandparents. They taught me the true meaning of resilience, love and faith. But most of all they taught me what a precious blessing it was to be alive and to explore the world.

I hope that Brad and Joy inspire more grandparents and grandchildren to see the world together. We are never too old or too young to try new things and embark on beautiful adventures. It is these moments, one camping trip and conversation at a time, that build the memories and legacies that live forever.