2:00

churches and of course we got one

2:05

restaurant and everybody kind

2:07

of helps each other if they need

2:09

to be helped and everybody's

2:11

friendly and I live on the 50

2:13

yards of the football field. She

2:17

doesn't literally live on the football field. Her

2:20

house faces it. For

2:24

years, Joy worked at the deli counter

2:26

at the supermarket. She kept

2:29

working into her early 80s. She

2:31

was 85 when Brad called and asked if she

2:33

wanted to go on that road trip. He

2:37

was 34. His

2:39

idea was that they'd leave that night and

2:41

drive to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

2:45

They drove seven hours to get there through

2:48

Kentucky and Tennessee. They

2:51

arrived at their campsite around 2 in the

2:53

morning. So tell me

2:55

when you got to the Smoky

2:57

Mountains, did

3:00

you set up camp together? Did you

3:02

share a tent? What was the setup?

3:05

Well he set up the tent while

3:07

I chased him with the

3:10

umbrella because it was pouring down

3:12

rain. Then we finally got

3:14

the tent up and

3:16

got the air mattress

3:18

blew up and of course then the court came

3:21

out and we had to do it again and

3:24

I had to climb underneath of it and hold

3:26

it up with my feet and then

3:28

I couldn't get out. The

3:30

next day it stopped raining. Brad

3:33

asked if Joy would like to take a hike. They

3:36

decided to try a part of the Alum Cave Trail.

3:39

It's about two and a half miles long and it

3:41

gains about 800 feet of elevation along

3:44

the way. Brad

3:46

wasn't sure how his grandmother would do on the

3:48

hike. They started

3:50

out slowly and along the way Brad

3:53

asked her if she wanted to turn around. She

3:56

didn't. Finally

3:59

they reached inspiration point,

4:01

a spot with views across the Smokies. We

4:04

got to see all the

4:06

elk and saw all the beautiful

4:08

mountains. And when we got to

4:11

the top, there was a huge

4:15

amount of college students up

4:17

there that had climbed

4:19

the mountain. And I got a

4:21

cheer when I got to the top. It

4:24

was Joy's first time camping and

4:27

her first time climbing a mountain. It

4:29

was also her first time visiting a

4:31

national park. Joy,

4:34

after the trip, did you

4:36

think I want to do this again? Oh,

4:39

sure. The rain

4:41

is, uh, deterrent. Uh,

4:44

you know, we dry out. I didn't think

4:46

anything about that. A

4:49

few months later, Brad called her

4:51

up again with another idea.

4:54

And again, she responded immediately.

4:57

That's the same answer that she always gives, which is let's

4:59

give it a whirl. I'm

5:02

Phoebe Judge, and this is

5:04

Love. My

5:18

baby said when he was little, and

5:21

then he got to come down to my house, and

5:24

I've got pictures of him with spaghetti from one

5:26

end to the other. And

5:29

I had a little dog, and

5:32

she was gray, and she had white hair

5:34

on the top. And he,

5:36

I was sitting on the floor, and he

5:38

said, Grandma, you just look like Midgey, because

5:41

I had gray hair, but

5:43

I had white hair on top. So he

5:45

decided I looked like the dog. Well,

5:49

she was the adventurous grandma, the

5:51

adventurous family member, the one who

5:53

would get in the stream with me

5:55

and catch frogs and crayfish when my mom wanted nothing to

5:57

do with it. And what was

5:59

he like? as a kid. Just

6:02

like every ornery little grandkids that

6:04

you have, little boys is into

6:06

everything. And he was

6:09

a cute little fella, so I let him

6:11

get away with other things that I wouldn't

6:13

let the kids, my children, do. And

6:16

he was just a

6:19

curious little fella, just to see what he

6:21

wanted to get into. But

6:23

he was always funny, and

6:25

so you couldn't help but love him.

6:29

Joy had three sons. One

6:31

of them was Brad's father. Growing

6:34

up, their family didn't get the chance

6:36

to travel very often. My

6:38

husband worked at a steel

6:41

plant, and he had two

6:43

weeks off vacation. And

6:45

so we always went to

6:48

Okeechobee, Florida, and he

6:50

feaced. So

6:53

that's about

6:55

the biggest adventure I'd had. When

6:58

Brad was little, he remembers going on

7:00

a fishing trip with his parents and

7:03

his grandparents. His father

7:05

liked to fish, just like his

7:07

grandfather. And I remember

7:10

being on a beach with her in the morning fog

7:13

and looking up at the seagulls that

7:15

were circling. Grandma

7:18

Joy had some breadcrumbs, and she

7:20

put them right down in front of us. And

7:23

I remember feeling that magic,

7:26

seeing these animals flying and then being right in

7:28

front of me. But

7:31

growing up, Brad says he

7:33

wasn't interested in the same things as

7:35

his father and grandfather. I

7:37

think that a lot of guys can

7:39

understand the disappointment that

7:46

they feel when

7:49

they can't meet their father's expectations of who

7:51

they want them to be. My

7:53

father was an all-star athlete,

7:57

baseball, basketball, football. He wanted me to do all

7:59

those things. things and I was just not

8:02

interested. I was a lot

8:04

more sensitive and reserved.

8:06

I was more academic.

8:09

I was happier to take photographs of animals,

8:11

not go out and hunt them like my

8:13

father. Brad says

8:15

he and his father kept growing apart. And

8:18

when Brad was in college, his parents

8:20

got divorced. He found out that

8:23

his father had been having an affair. He

8:25

came home to confront him and he

8:28

says they got into an argument. His

8:30

grandmother was there too. He

8:32

grabbed my arm strong

8:35

enough to leave a bruise and

8:37

I was starting to

8:39

come out as gay

8:41

and I just,

8:45

I knew from, if I ever told

8:48

him something like that, that he would have no part

8:50

of it. So I was ready

8:52

to set out on my

8:55

own path anyway. And when he

8:57

grabbed me and my grandma was standing there and

8:59

she didn't know what to do, you know, but

9:01

at the time I felt like I wasn't being

9:03

defended and I felt like I

9:05

was going to reject them before they had a

9:07

chance to reject me. And so I didn't

9:10

speak to my grandma again for almost a

9:12

decade. We'll

9:17

be right back. Apple

9:30

Card is the credit card created by Apple.

9:33

You earn 3% daily cash back upfront when

9:35

you use it to buy a new iPhone

9:37

15, AirPods or any products

9:39

at Apple. And you can

9:41

automatically grow your daily cash at 4.15% annual

9:45

percentage yield when you open a high

9:47

yield savings account. Apply

9:49

for Apple Card in the Wallet app on iPhone.

9:52

Apple Card subject to credit approval. Savings

9:54

is available to Apple Card owners subject to

9:57

eligibility. Savings accounts by Goldman Sachs Bank USA.

10:00

after I see it in terms of life. Support

10:08

for This Is Love comes from StoryWorth.

10:11

When spending the holidays with loved ones you

10:14

often end up sharing tons of stories. StoryWorth

10:16

is an online service that lets you

10:19

preserve those precious memories and stories

10:21

for years to come. Every

10:23

week StoryWorth emails your loved one a question they've

10:25

always wanted to hear about. I've gifted several people

10:27

with StoryWorth and it's been a really special way

10:30

to let someone in your life know that you

10:32

want to know more about them, that

10:34

you want to hear all their stories, even the

10:36

ones you might not even know to ask about. After

10:39

a year StoryWorth compiles your loved

10:41

one's stories, memories, and even any

10:43

photos into a hardcover book creating

10:46

a valued keepsake for generations to

10:48

come. Help your family share

10:50

their story this holiday season with StoryWorth.

10:52

Go to storyworth.com/This Is Love

10:54

today and save $10 on

10:56

your first purchase. That's

10:58

storyworth.com/This Is Love to

11:01

save $10 on your

11:04

first purchase. storyworth.com/This

11:06

Is Love. In

11:12

2008 Brad Ryan's younger sister

11:15

got married. He

11:17

knew his grandmother would be at the

11:19

wedding and he hadn't seen or talked

11:21

to her in years. When

11:24

he saw his grandmother at the church he was

11:26

surprised at how thin she looked. He

11:28

found out that she'd been unwell. She

11:30

was having trouble walking. He

11:33

went over an offer to help her get to her seat but

11:36

they didn't talk much. A

11:39

few months later Brad decided to hike

11:42

the Appalachian Trail. He'd finished

11:44

college and was slowly saving up money to

11:46

go back to school. He'd always

11:48

wanted to become a veterinarian. As

11:51

he hiked from Georgia to Maine he

11:53

says he thought about his life and his family.

11:56

And of course I I thought of

11:58

my grandmother so I I wanted to

12:00

make sure that when I got back

12:03

from the Appalachian Trail that I started

12:06

to move towards that reconciliation. After

12:09

the trip, Brad kept working toward his goal

12:12

of veterinary school. And

12:14

he reached out to his grandmother. He

12:16

asked her if he could come say hello. When

12:18

I called her the first time, I could

12:21

feel the coldness from her, you know, and I think

12:23

it was just hurt feelings. Joy, that

12:25

must have been hard for you to not have a

12:28

relationship with your grandson for so long. Yes,

12:31

but you just didn't know how to make

12:35

things right, you know. So

12:37

it just took a while to get

12:40

things back together. On

12:44

that first visit, Brad went over to

12:46

Joy's house and they went for a walk. He

12:49

told her about hiking the Appalachian Trail. She

12:52

told him that she'd never seen mountains before.

12:57

Brad went back to Columbus and

12:59

eventually started veterinary school. And

13:02

a couple of years after that first phone call, he

13:05

called his grandmother up again and invited

13:07

her to go on that road trip to

13:09

Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That

13:13

night after their hike, they sat

13:15

around a campfire and talked about

13:18

everything. Brad

13:20

told his grandmother that he was having a

13:22

hard time in veterinary school. One

13:25

of his fellow students had recently died

13:27

by suicide. We talked

13:29

about that. So you

13:32

know, you just never, you never

13:35

know what someone else's had

13:38

at the time. You don't know what

13:40

their feelings really are. So

13:45

it makes you stop and think. After

13:50

Brad and Joy got home from their trip, he

13:52

says he kept thinking about how much closer he felt

13:54

to her. He felt like

13:56

the trip had changed their relationship. He

14:00

started looking into other national parks they could

14:02

visit. I wanted to go

14:04

as far as we could. I didn't

14:06

know. I felt the pressure of

14:09

time. We

14:12

all have that, right? There's no guarantee. As

14:15

you get older, that becomes

14:18

a bigger question of how much time do you really have.

14:21

So I just wanted to make sure that

14:23

we went full throttle. Brad

14:26

asked his grandmother, and together

14:28

they decided that they'd try to visit all

14:30

63 national parks in

14:32

the United States. The

14:36

national parks are spread over 30

14:38

states and two U.S. territories, American

14:41

Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

14:44

They cover more than 3 percent of

14:47

the entire country. Brad

14:50

and Joy had already been to the most visited

14:52

one, Great Smoky Mountains National

14:54

Park in Tennessee, which

14:56

had 13 million visitors in

14:58

2022. The

15:02

largest national park is Rangel St.

15:04

Elias National Park and Preserve

15:06

in southeastern Alaska. It's

15:09

13 million acres. And

15:12

the smallest park is Gateway Arch National

15:14

Park in Missouri. It's

15:16

only 90 acres and became

15:18

a national park just a few years ago.

15:23

National parks are still being created. The

15:26

first one was Yellowstone, established by

15:28

Congress in 1872. It

15:32

was the world's first national park.

15:37

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt consolidated all

15:39

of the country's national parks and

15:41

monuments into one system in

15:43

1933. And

15:46

in 1964, when the Wilderness

15:48

Act was passed, President Lyndon

15:51

Johnson said, if future

15:53

generations are to remember us with

15:56

gratitude rather than contempt, we

15:58

must leave them something more important. more than the

16:00

miracles of technology. We

16:03

must leave them a glimpse of the world as

16:06

it was in the beginning, not

16:08

just after we got through it. In

16:15

the summer of 2017, Brad and Joy decided

16:18

to go on a 28-day road trip. They

16:22

planned to drive a big loop from

16:24

Badlands National Park in South Dakota up

16:26

to Mount Rainier in Washington down

16:29

through Joshua Tree in California, back

16:31

up to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado,

16:35

and onto Mammoth Cave National Park in

16:37

Kentucky. I mean, you

16:40

know, Brad, I mean, I

16:43

love my grandmother, too. I

16:45

mean, we had the most wonderful time together.

16:47

We would just laugh and laugh for hours.

16:49

But you're kind of a young guy. Right.

16:52

And you're saying, let's sign up, Grandma,

16:56

to go spend hours

16:59

and hours and hours together in a

17:01

car. Yeah,

17:04

I understand. I mean, it's just

17:06

a dynamic that people aren't used

17:08

to seeing. You know, we

17:11

were very aware that we were an odd couple. But

17:16

when we were out there together seeing these sights, and

17:19

I saw how much it meant to her, and

17:22

when I saw how she was

17:24

still capable of joining

17:26

me for these adventures, she was on

17:29

the trails with me. And the people

17:31

we met were inspired by her. It was inspiring.

17:33

It kind of made them do a double take

17:35

to see somebody her age climbing

17:37

that mountain with me, you know? And I realized that

17:39

this was just the right thing to do. It was

17:41

the right thing to do to not leave her behind.

17:45

It was just away

17:47

from the telephone, away from the

17:49

TV. And we

17:53

were just like, we were free.

17:55

We could just do whatever we

17:57

wanted. Nobody had given us

17:59

orders. where we had to go, what

18:01

we had to do. They wanted to

18:03

stop with a Dairy Queen and get a milk

18:05

cake, we could do that. And

18:08

it was, it

18:11

was something that you

18:15

never forget. What

18:17

do you remember seeing out of the

18:20

window, Joy? You know,

18:22

when you would look out the window, what

18:24

amazed you the most? Well,

18:28

we saw these amazing fields of

18:30

sunflowers. They

18:33

were just miles of them.

18:36

We didn't know for sure what they was for a

18:38

while. It was just a

18:40

mass of yellow, we didn't know. And

18:43

then we got to see some closer to the rose

18:45

and we could see what they were. But

18:49

then there was fields of the

18:51

yellow flowers that they used to make

18:53

mustard with. And

18:56

I never got to see things

18:59

like that either. So it's really,

19:02

it's amazing what you see out there on

19:04

the road. It doesn't

19:06

have to be something big, but

19:08

it just happens to be things that you

19:11

just never get thought to at home

19:14

when you were putting the mustard on

19:16

your sandwich or feeding the

19:18

birds. Did you

19:20

listen to music? Oh

19:22

yeah, if you can call us that.

19:26

That was shade. Oh man,

19:29

clankety bang and screaming and

19:31

good gravy. Oh,

19:33

come on. There

19:36

was plenty of- For a while he turned into one

19:38

kind of music, you know, like Nat

19:41

King Cole. Nat King Cole and that

19:43

kind of thing. Joy, you and I would

19:45

have been on the scene. Frank Sinatra, Nat

19:47

King Cole. And you can hum along to

19:49

those same songs, but that's what

19:51

they play now. You can hum the lymph from

19:53

up and- She's

19:56

opinionated. They visited

19:58

21 parks. in 28

20:00

days, places like

20:03

Crater Lake, Yosemite, and Petrified

20:05

Forest, staying in campgrounds

20:07

along the way. Joy

20:09

was 87. They

20:12

went to Redwood National Park in California, where

20:15

some of the trees are more than 20 feet wide

20:18

and have lived for more than 2,000 years. It

20:23

is amazing to stand at the bottom of

20:25

a Redwood tree, and you

20:27

can hardly see the

20:29

top, and to know

20:31

that it has stood there for hundreds

20:34

and hundreds of years. It's

20:37

been struck by lightning. It's got big

20:39

gouges out of it. It's burnt in

20:41

different places. And

20:44

it just takes your breath

20:46

away. That's all. And if you've

20:49

seen something that's so grand, that's

20:51

been standing there for such a

20:53

long, long time, it's beautiful.

20:57

And you wish everybody could see this. Every

21:02

part is wonderful.

21:05

Every part is different.

21:08

And you just enter

21:11

with anticipation. What

21:13

are we going to see next that's different?

21:18

And it's just hardly explained to

21:20

somebody the wonders that

21:22

are out there, if nobody has

21:24

ever gone to see it. It's

21:27

just amazing. And

21:31

everything's free. Good

21:34

Lord made everything so you can just

21:36

go and enjoy it and smile and

21:38

laugh and just have the best time.

21:42

And it doesn't cost you a penny. We'll

21:49

be right back. Saying

22:01

no to anyone is hard. When

22:03

that person's a family member or

22:05

one of your closest friends, it's

22:07

practically impossible. Even when

22:09

they ask things like, hey it's your

22:12

uncle Walt, listen I'm locked out of my

22:14

bank account and I need 50 bucks stat, can you help

22:16

me out? It can

22:18

feel really overwhelming when family asks to

22:20

borrow money. I think our first instinct

22:22

is always to help our family and so

22:24

we're willing to do whatever it takes to make

22:27

sure that they Dr.

22:29

Marty DeLima studies financial fraud. When

22:31

you get a call from a family member, maybe

22:34

it seems out of the blue, the first thing

22:36

to do is pause. Like how urgent is this?

22:39

And then always ask that person

22:41

a question only that family member

22:43

would know the answer to. Hello?

22:46

Hey don't forget about your uncle Walt. Oh

22:49

yeah. Look, what did we

22:51

have for dinner together last week?

22:54

Gotta go. Goodbye. Viator

23:24

is a website and app

23:26

where you can book travel

23:28

experiences like architectural sightseeing, snorkeling

23:31

excursions, sunset cruises and so

23:33

much more. With Viator

23:35

you can reserve everything from simple

23:37

tours to thrilling adventures with over

23:39

300,000 bookable experiences in 190 countries. Whether

23:43

you're a foodie, a history buff or

23:45

an adrenaline junkie, there's something for everyone.

23:47

Plus Viator's travel experiences have millions of

23:49

real travel reviews so you can have

23:52

the information you need to book the

23:54

best activities for your trip. When you

23:56

book a travel experience with Viator, there's

23:58

always a way to get there. Always

24:00

seek stability and support with free

24:02

cancellation, payment options, and 24-7 service.

24:06

Make memories that will last forever

24:08

with Viator. Download the

24:10

Viator app now and use code VIATOR10 for

24:12

10% off your first booking in the app.

24:14

One app, over 300,000 travel

24:16

experiences you'll remember. Do more

24:19

with Viator. Brad

24:24

and Joy Ryan kept going to more

24:26

and more national parks. By

24:29

the end of 2019, they had visited

24:31

all of the parks in the continental

24:33

United States and two national

24:35

parks in Hawaii, 52 in total.

24:40

For Christmas that year, Brad gave

24:42

Joy a scrapbook with pictures and

24:44

souvenirs from the parks they'd visited

24:46

so far. They'd

24:49

seen Old Faithful erupt at Yellowstone,

24:52

walked on the rocky beaches at Acadia National

24:54

Park in Maine, and

24:56

watched the sunrise at the Graham Canyon.

25:00

They'd driven about 40,000 miles across

25:02

the U.S. together. I

25:04

drove. She held onto the Atlas

25:06

because we couldn't always trust that we would have

25:09

a cell phone signal and that Google

25:11

Maps would work. Brad

25:13

had also started documenting their trips on

25:15

social media on an account

25:17

called Grandma Joy's Road Trip. At

25:20

first, they were just sharing photos with friends

25:23

from back in Ohio. But

25:26

they started getting a lot of attention. People

25:29

started offering to help. Before

25:32

one trip, a local tire shop

25:34

in Ohio rotated Brad's tires for

25:36

free and rode on the receipt,

25:39

Joy, have a great road trip. And

25:42

after a few years of mostly camping, a

25:45

hotel chain offered them free rooms.

25:48

And as she moved into her 90s, she upgraded to

25:50

a hotel room. Yeah,

25:52

they said I could have a bed, so strange. Joy,

25:55

did you ever get tired? I mean, that's a

25:57

lot of traveling to do for anyone.

26:00

albeit someone who's 90. Yeah, but

26:04

I didn't just kind of think it was

26:06

just kind of fun like a it

26:08

was a vacation so and

26:12

there was always something different to see

26:14

and all these people was always so

26:17

sweet and nice to us. We

26:20

never heard any curse words, we

26:22

never heard any yelling or screaming,

26:24

everybody was just the

26:27

people all change when they get into

26:29

a national park. So if

26:32

everybody just got along, no one spoke

26:34

the same language but it didn't make

26:36

any difference and we still could you

26:39

say in that pretty and everybody

26:41

smile and so it was just it

26:43

was just a happy time. Brad

26:47

and Joy had been traveling together on and

26:49

off for more than four years but

26:52

of course not every moment

26:54

was happy. Usually she lives up

26:56

to her name but when

26:58

Gremel Joy gets grumpy there's usually a reason

27:01

for it and I learned as

27:03

we went along that I had to

27:05

ask a few more questions if her personality

27:08

took a dramatic turn I needed to do

27:10

a little bit of probing and when we

27:12

were in Virgin

27:14

Islands National Park the

27:16

host family that invited us there

27:20

wanted her to be able to go out on

27:22

the water and an inflatable kayak and see the

27:24

sea turtles but she was kind of getting

27:26

a little bit a little

27:28

bit snippy a little bit a little bit

27:31

her brow was furrowed and I didn't know

27:33

why and she told me that she nearly

27:35

drowned when she was a little girl and

27:38

so being able to

27:40

recognize that there was probably something underlying

27:43

that that attitude that

27:45

I was seeing on the surface allowed me

27:47

to understand what was really going on. Joy

27:51

did Brad ever get grumpy along the

27:54

trip? Oh I

27:57

don't know I suppose everybody gets grumpy

27:59

once in a while. Oh, I just

28:01

don't pay attention to it.

28:03

I mean, my gosh, we're

28:05

all human. We can't all be yippie-yippie

28:08

all the time. So-

28:11

She told me when I got on her nerves, she just turned her

28:13

hearing aids off. Ha ha ha. Joey

28:17

and Brad knew they needed to take a break from their

28:19

travels in early 2020 because

28:21

Joey needed to have a knee replacement. And

28:25

then the pandemic began. I

28:27

didn't even know if she was gonna survive, let

28:30

alone, you know,

28:32

make it through, get vaccinated. But

28:34

in the summer of 2021, not

28:37

too long after having a second knee replacement,

28:40

Joey and Brad started checking more parks

28:42

off their list. They

28:44

got on a plane to go to Katmai National

28:46

Park in Alaska just in time

28:49

to see the salmon run. From

28:51

the moment we got there, we saw this

28:53

huge brown bear sticking out of the water

28:55

like a periscope. And we

28:58

knew we weren't in Duncan Falls, Ohio anymore, that's

29:00

for sure. And you

29:02

get off the plane and you realize, okay, I

29:04

guess everybody else is doing it, this must be

29:06

safe. And you go to bear school, and

29:09

the ranger tells you that to get down to that

29:12

platform that everybody knows

29:14

about where you see all these bears fishing,

29:17

you have to walk over a mile

29:20

through the forest. And they

29:23

tell you if you encounter a bear

29:25

that's walking toward you, just step to the side. It

29:28

won't be a problem. Of course, I'm glad that didn't happen to us.

29:30

I guess it would have made a better story. But

29:32

we got down to the end and

29:35

there we were with witnessing 30

29:37

brown bears at once. And

29:39

we saw salmon jump right into their mouths.

29:42

One of the bears had a cub, a

29:45

little cub with her, and she

29:47

made him get up a tree. She

29:51

didn't want him to get in

29:53

any trouble. Something

29:56

could happen to him. And I thought,

29:58

but just like any other mother. getting

30:00

a child out of the way so

30:02

he didn't get anything wrong with him.

30:07

There was one bear that

30:09

did nothing but just stand there and wait

30:11

until somebody got a fish and then he

30:13

would take it from him. I said,

30:15

you know, I see people like that all

30:17

the time, let somebody do all the work and

30:19

then they take all the glory. So

30:23

it was fun to watch. In

30:26

May of 2023, seven

30:29

and a half years after they'd started, Brad

30:32

and Joy had one more national park left

30:35

on their list. It

30:37

was the national park that receives the least number of

30:39

visitors each year. The

30:42

National Park of American Samoa. It's

30:46

the only national park south of the equator.

30:48

It was created in the 1980s and protects the

30:50

natural habitat of flying foxes, a type of bat. But

30:59

right before their trip, Brad got a

31:01

call from his mother. She told him that his father wasn't

31:04

doing well. He was on a ventilator.

31:06

Brad talked with Joy about

31:08

whether they should go to see

31:10

him. Brad hadn't talked to his father in

31:12

20 years. Joy hadn't talked to them recently either. We

31:17

weren't going to go. And I looked over at my grandmother as we

31:19

were driving in the opposite direction

31:23

and I had a flashback to a memory that she talked about when we

31:25

were driving across country

31:34

about when he was about two

31:37

and a half or so, I think. And he fell out of a

31:39

second story window and

31:41

she thought that he was going to die

31:43

at that age. To hear her tell that story and to think

31:47

about even if

31:51

the whole story wasn't as beautiful as you intended, there

31:53

was still love there. And

31:56

here I was, potentially depriving her

31:58

of the opportunity to to say goodbye

32:00

to her last living son. Brad

32:04

and Joy were in South Florida together at

32:06

the time. They

32:08

drove to Louisiana to see his father.

32:11

So we were all there for

32:14

the last moments of

32:16

his consciousness. And

32:18

it was

32:24

a peaceful

32:27

feeling, I think. We

32:30

felt like we had accomplished what we came

32:32

to do. A

32:36

few days after Brad's father died, Joy

32:39

and Brad got on a plane to American Samoa.

32:43

There, they both got certificates

32:45

for visiting all of the national parks.

32:49

Joy was 93 at the time. They

32:53

believe she's the oldest person to

32:55

ever visit all of America's national

32:57

parks. And

33:00

the governor came and gave

33:03

a speech. And

33:06

everybody was so happy. And everybody

33:09

smiled. It's

33:12

something to remember. And

33:14

then they took a picture of

33:16

us with our certificate. And

33:18

that's something we can put on the wall

33:20

and look at. Were

33:24

you sad about being done when

33:26

you went to Park 63? No.

33:31

I figured there was something else around the corner. Joy

33:35

wasn't wrong. We've

33:37

gone now from 63 US national

33:40

parks to our new goal of visiting the

33:42

seven continents. And we've already done two of

33:44

them. We went to Africa this

33:46

summer. And we're heading to the Galapagos in

33:48

January. So seven is a,

33:51

to me, it's a much more achievable number than

33:53

63. I'm glad that the numbers come down

33:55

a little bit. Joy.

34:00

What would you say to another older

34:02

person who's thinking about traveling, but

34:04

also thinking this could be hard? What would

34:08

you say to them? Try

34:12

to keep a positive outlook. If

34:21

somebody asks you to do something, don't

34:23

say no, say yes, even though you

34:25

think maybe you won't like it. But

34:28

you'll be surprised when you get out

34:30

there and you see all the wondrous

34:32

things that's out off of your front

34:34

porch. And you

34:37

know, don't believe people when they

34:39

say you're too old to do something. Just

34:42

tell them to kiss your grits and just keep

34:44

on going. This

34:58

Is Love is created by Lauren Sporr and

35:01

me. Nnedi Wilson is our

35:03

senior producer. Katie Bishop is our

35:05

supervising producer. Our

35:07

producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie

35:09

Sujico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison,

35:12

Sam Kim, and Megan Kinane.

35:15

Emma Munger makes this episode. Engineering

35:17

by Ross Henry. Learn

35:20

more about the show on our website,

35:22

thisislovepodcast.com. You

35:24

can sign up for our

35:27

newsletter at thisislovepodcast.com/newsletter. If

35:29

you like the show, tell a friend or leave us a review.

35:32

It means a lot. You

35:34

can listen to This Is Love without any

35:36

ads by signing up for Criminal Plus. You'll

35:39

also get to listen to an ad free to our other shows, Criminal

35:42

and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Plus,

35:45

you'll get bonus episodes and more. To

35:48

learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash

35:50

plus. We're on

35:52

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at This Is Love Show.

35:55

This Is Love is recorded in the

35:57

studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.

36:00

We're part of the Vox Media

36:02

Podcast Network. Discover

36:04

more great shows at

36:07

podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm

36:09

Phoebe Judge and this is love.