A 94-year-old explorer who made headlines last year for being the oldest person to visit all 63 U.S. National Parks just returned from Chile and the Galápagos Islands on her newest quest: to conquer all seven continents. Joy Ryan of Duncan Falls, Ohio, told Fox News Digital in an interview, “When you get to a certain age, everybody starts saying, ‘Oh, you can’t do that. You’re too old to do that kind of thing.’ Just tell them to jump in the river and be positive. Give it a try. If you don’t try the next day, you’ll regret it.”
So that’s what she did — beginning at age 85. Ryan lived for nearly her entire life in Duncan Falls, 68 of those years in the same house. She worked at the deli in her local grocery store, sold Avon products for a while, ran a gift shop with her late husband, Bob, and enjoyed the company of her grandchildren. Brad Ryan told Fox News Digital, “My very first memory as a human being was on a lake shore when I was about two-and-a-half years old with seagulls circling. Grandma tossed some breadcrumbs down, and the seagulls landed in front of me. That was my introduction to joy — to the magic of life.”
Brad Ryan said his grandmother was always willing to get into a stream with him, catching frogs and crayfish. However, as he grew up, time, divorce, and distance kept them apart for almost 10 years. As a 30-something adventure-loving veterinarian who travels and speaks on topics such as GI parasites, Brad Ryan had seen a lot of the world and decided it was time to revisit his roots. As the two began to reconnect, Ryan said that his grandmother casually mentioned that she had never seen a mountain — and she wished she had.
View this post on Instagram
He said, “I thought, ‘What a simple dream.’ It was just this in-your-face moment of like, ‘Wow, not everybody gets to leave their hometown and see what I’ve been able to see.’ It was supposed to be just a one-and-done camping trip to the Smokies. She ended up seeing not only her first mountain but climbing her first mountain at age 85, two and a half miles up on the Alum Cave trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.” Joy Ryan got a standing ovation when she reached the summit, her grandson said. But she half-jokingly said that the trek “wasn’t that challenging,” and that’s where their journey began.
Joy Ryan said, laughing, “I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was going to be a big cave and all it was was just a dip in the rock. I said, ‘You mean to tell me I climbed clear up here for a dip in the rock?'” But she would soon face more significant and better challenges — and take in grander views. For example, when she and her grandson landed on a glacier, floated with sea turtles, faced class III rapids on a rafting trip, and went on a safari.
Some of her most exciting moments, Joy Ryan said, have been seeing wildlife in their natural environment, such as the cinematic experience of watching 30 brown bears feed on salmon under a waterfall in Denali National Park in Alaska. With their plan to set foot on every continent, they’ve already conquered four, which includes the debatable eighth continent of Oceania when they visited American Samoa.
Besides North America, the pair have visited Africa and have just returned from South America. Joy Ryan used some newly acquired Spanish language skills to communicate with her tour guide and others in Chile and the Galápagos Islands.
Read Previous Post
