This episode originally aired on June 17, 2026.
When Ohio native and Ohio State alum Brad Ryan’s parents got divorced, it ripped his family apart.
But he found a way to reconnect with his estranged grandmother by way of visiting all of America's national parks.
The journey made them famous. At 93 years old, Grandma Joy became the oldest person to visit all 63 national parks, even the one in American Samoa. She achieved this goal thanks to her grandson and his Ford Escape, which took them across thousands of miles and through dozens of states.
Ryan has turned their story of adventure and connection into a book: Grandma Joy and Me: A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time.
He joins us on this hour of All Sides to discuss his travels with his grandmother.
Guest:
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. At 93 years old, Joy Ryan, known to the world as Grandma Joy, became the oldest person to visit all 63 national parks, even the one in American Samoa. She achieved this milestone thanks to her grandson, Brad Ryan, a native Ohioan and Ohio State graduate who wanted to take his then estranged grandmother to see her first mountain and hopefully reconnect with her after years of not speaking.
But picture this, a 34-year-old takes an 85-year old to the great Smoky Mountains National Park to sleep in a tent. There was no larger goal for that one trip until Brad realized that true perspective and healing was probably gonna require more than one national park.
And then the mission changed. Brad Ryan has turned their story of adventure and connection into a book. "Grandma, join me, a journey of healing, one national Park at a time." Brad Ryan, welcome to All Sides.
Brad Ryan: Thank you so much.
Juravich: So your book opens with a note from Mindy Marquez, who says that she followed you on Instagram and loved your journey, and she approached you about writing a book. So what did you think when Mindy reached out to you and said, hey, is there a book in here?
Ryan: Well you know what's interesting is that when our story went viral in 2019, I was approached by a different publisher and we did the proposal and I knew because we weren't complete, the journey wasn't complete at that point and I was like, this proposal doesn't feel right to me. This is an unbaked cake, you know, and I'm glad it fell through.
And then when the journey was complete, she messaged me on Instagram and have you thought about writing a book? And I was, like, well, I think we can have a good conversation about that because Um, this is my. My greatest dream come true.
Juravich: To write a book is your greatest dream come true. Wow. So, I mean, did you think, you know, whenever you decided when you went from one park and you're like, maybe we should try all the parks, did you start taking notes? Did you think like, Oh, I need to remember all this.
Ryan: I have 90,000 plus photos and videos on my phone. Every time she would start telling a story, I'd say, wait just one second, I would record.
And she would, and I have it all down. So when you're reading dialog in the book, you're 99% of the time it's actual, some of it is transcripts and then there are other things that just come from memory. And yeah, there's, you'll see in the, she has a very distinct vocabulary, a very distinct, I call them grandma joyisms. She's just hurt She's born in 1930, you know, and she's from Appalachian rural Ohio. So she definitely has a very distinct voice.
Juravich: Distinct way of speaking. Yes. And your grandmother instilled a love of the outdoors in you when you were a small child, but she had not traveled much at all. Can you talk to me a little bit about spending time outdoors with her as a young kid in rural? Ohio.
Ryan: Yeah, well I went on to become a wildlife veterinarian and I don't think that that was by accident because she took me into the streams of Blue Rock State Park when I was really small and I remember having a Cool Whip container that I would fill with water and then we would lift up the rocks and pluck the snails off. Like a
Juravich: Like a good Ohio boy, of course it's cool whiff, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Ryan: Yeah, it crawled ads and minnows and all of it and I remember running barefoot through the forest and getting those pine needles stuck to the bottom of my feet and it was just a love of the great outdoors that just stuck with me and yeah, it goes way back through the generations as I found out.
Juravich: So if she loved the outdoors so much, but she didn't travel, so she loved the outdoors just in her own backyard kind of thing.
Ryan: Kind of thing. Yeah, she always appreciated what was in her backyard. And yes, she didn't have access to much outside of Duncan Falls, but she stayed active.
She found purpose in that little town. She read books to children as a volunteer. She worked in a deli until she was almost 80 years old, just so that she could stay connected to the community and not be home alone. And yes the little bit of outdoor recreation that was available to her, she took advantage of it.
Juravich: And just for people who are listening, so you're from Duncan Falls, which is near Zanesville.
Ryan: Very close to Zanesvile.
Juravich: Very close Zanesvil, okay. So you and your grandmother were disconnected and you didn't talk for many years. There was a rift in your family after your parents' divorce. You stopped talking to your father and Grandma Joy is his parent, so you stopped talking his parents as well. Can you tell me about what happened when you were in vet school at Ohio State University that caused you to reconsider things, At least, with your- grandmother. Tell me about that.
Ryan: Yeah, just the timeline can get a little bit complex, but the short story is that we became estranged around 2002 and in 2009, I through-hiked the Appalachian Trail and that was a period of reflection that was the impetus for me trying to reconnect with her. And so in the early days of reconnection, we would go back to Blue Rock State Park and she learned, or I learned that she had never seen a mountain and that the seed that was planted that One day I need to take her on a road trip somewhere. That's such an easy bucket list item to check off.
And then I got accepted to grad school at Ohio State for the veterinary public health program. And then rolled right into my vet program. So it was a five year program. And I was in the very end of that whole journey. I was on my radiology rotation and I had been battling suicidal ideation and chronic depression pretty much the entire time that I was at vet school for a litany of reasons that are probably. Beyond the scope of this interview, but it was a pressure cooker that really got the best of me because I'm a perfectionist type A student and I found myself not performing at the level that I wasn't reaching the bar that I had always set for myself, despite the fact that I'd never worked harder in my life. I was not meeting my own expectations and it really led to me turning on myself. This is not an unusual phenomenon within veterinary medicine, believe it or not.
Juravich: We've done a show about that school. Yeah, we did a show about the the stress of that school and the stress of veterinary medicine. Yeah.
Ryan: Well, the Dean, Ruston Moore, has done amazing in transforming the culture there through the Be the Model initiative. But at the time, they had a long way to go, in my opinion, and that was over a decade. So yeah, have some grace there because they have changed.
But a second year veterinary student did commit suicide at the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. And that was the Friday morning that I learned that was, the morning that called her, and that was the jump start of Grandma Joy's road trip.
Juravich: Yeah, so you called her and you asked her, would you like to go see Great Smoky Mountains with me? Did you expect her to say yes?
Ryan: I thought, I mean, she's a very dynamic woman. She's always had a lot of zeal and I wasn't surprised, but it was also.
Juravich: But you mentioned in your introduction that she's 85 years old and you're gonna sleep on air mattresses in a tent. So, I mean, I don't wanna do that in my mid-40s. So did Grandma Joy know that this was tent camping you were inviting her to?
Ryan: Yeah, I told her we would be sleeping in a tent and she goes, oh, we've never done that before, might as well give it a whirl. That's what she says. Give it a world. That is her philosophy.
Juravich: Okay, so she didn't worry about her back, her hips or...
Ryan: I don't think so. I don t really think she knew what she was in for. That was the only trip that we did with air mattresses. The next trip we did military cots, which gets you off the ground. It's a little more padding.
Juravich: Hmm
Ryan: But yeah, that first trip, I mean, you see it in the first chapter. I'm driving down there thinking, what have I done? Look at her hands. She is an old lady, but she doesn't act like it. So I forget sometimes.
Juravich: So on that first trip, she climbed a mountain in the Smoky Mountains and other hikers were impressed. The phrase you use in the book is not too bad for 85 years old. So I bet that came up a lot over the years. Do you hear like not too for an old lady? Do you that a lot? Oh for sure.
Ryan: I mean she she she causes everyone she meets to do a double take because what are you doing out here? What are you white your white water rafting at 91?
Juravich: And they do a double take to you, like, what are you do-
Ryan: What are you two about? Yeah, we always say we're not a couple. 51 years age gap and she's my grandmother. She's my.
Juravich: She's my grandma. Yeah, this is this is All Sides on 89 7 NPR News. I'm your host, Amy Juravich, and we're talking with Brad Ryan. He and his grandmother are native Ohioans, and Brad took his grandma joy to visit all 63 national parks. His new book is called "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time." So Grandma Joy was 87 when you asked her to visit every national park with you. So this is a couple years after you did your first one. Yes. Did you think she'd say no? Or yes?
Ryan: Once again, I mean, this was a little more ambitious, but I thought, I knew that she was under-stimulated. You know, you can't help but be under- stimulated when you've spent the better part of nine decades in the same two-traffic light town. It used to be a one-trafic light town, you drive through it in a minute. So yeah, I think she was ready. I mean she loves it. You can see that she comes alive when she's in that passenger seat. Yeah.
Juravich: So take me back to July of 2017. This is when you truly started your journey and you spent weeks on the road in your Ford Escape. You went to the Badlands, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Redwoods in California, the Grand Canyon. I mean, the list goes on. That first trip has a long list. That wouldn't be ambitious for just a 25-year-old. Yeah, whenever you were mapping that out, I mean what were you thinking? Like knock out as many as possible?
Ryan: Yeah, I was learning about the national parks in real time. I was just, the initial thought was, I just want to recapture the magic of that weekend in the Smokies. What's park two going to be? And then I, Yellowstone, that's gotta be the one because who doesn't want to go to Yellowstone? And then, I'm looking, I actually own an Atlas.
Juravich: Okay, I'll pay for one. Of course, of course. Yeah
Ryan: I was born in the 80s like we can old schools fun. Yeah, I've listened to vinyl all that stuff But yeah, I looked at the map and I thought well if we're gonna drive out there I badlands I never heard of that one. I looked up. Oh, that is I've never even heard it I can't believe I've ever heard of place that looks amazing and then Grand Teton is right beside Yellowstone I didn't know about that either I was very ignorant about the national parks despite my love of the great outdoors and I had been pretty much living on the East Coast my whole life when I did the AT I hiked through the Smokies and Shenandoah, but It just became this, I don't know, it just sort of snowballed.
I thought, okay, well, I mean, I'm not gonna start my next job until the end of the summer, so why don't we just go out for a month? So we did, we did 21 US national parks in 28 days. Sorry, yeah, yeah.
Juravich: 21 in 28 days.
Ryan: Okay. Mostly tent camping.
Juravich: With those cots in the tent.
Ryan: Yeah, and she put the tent together. I would, my job was to be the workhorse and haul all the heavy things and the cooler and all that stuff. And she, she would have it all set up. Wow. Yeah.
Juravich: Do you have a favorite memory from that leg of the journey? I know it's hard whenever people ask you for your favorite national park, but let's specifically on that July, those 28 days in July of 2017, like what sticks out for you?
Ryan: Well, if I can give two, on a human level, my favorite memory is when we were in Glacier National Park and we went hiking to see the moose at dusk on Fisher Cap Lake in Glatier National Park and this little girl who didn't speak English, who was about four years old, wearing pretty much the same type of polka dotted fleece on her own volition just went over and sat next to her on the shore of the lake and handed her binoculars. And they sat there and they passed the binocular back and forth. Smiling and pointing and there was this exchange of joy, pure joy and it cut across the generational divide, across language barriers and it reminded me of course of my own inner child and I thought a lot about how really we're hardwired for that.
It's not a taboo thing or some type of anomaly that we would be connected to older people, that we'd have friendships across the generational divide. We're very open to it when we're young and then somewhere along the the course of life that becomes less cool for some reason. But that's really our hard wiring. And I thought, well, OK, I'm not really doing anything that crazy after all. But from just a cinematic, epic moment, obviously, her roll down the sand dune in Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Juravich: For people who don't know, everyone was rolling down the sand dune and you were like, oh, you joked around. Basically, right in the book, you jokered about her trying it. And she just said, of course, why not?
Ryan: She told me to kiss her grits when I said, you can't do this. She goes, what do you mean? I said well, you could break a hip. She goes it's sand. Kiss my grits, I'm going.
Juravich: Oh man.
Ryan: And I filmed her doing this and I just knew like to me it looked like a movie moment and I thought this woman is Extraordinary. I can't believe I'm so lucky
Juravich: Yeah, so she was 87 when she rolled down the hill and then she climbed back up or crawled. Oh, she crawled back up. Crawled back, yeah. From that leg of the journey, whenever you're talking about it in the book, my favorite part is the way you describe the redwoods. I like how in the books you and Grandma Joy both have similar and different takeaways for the red woods, using these giant redwood as an example, but those trees made her feel young. Tell me about that.
Ryan: Well, I said that another frame of reference. It's another lesson that we got from the national parks is that really age is relative, right? So if we're just looking on a human life scale, maybe 51 years seems like a lot. If you're standing next to a redwood tree, we're practically the same age, you know?
And so once again, it's just this way of moving through life and being open to what the natural world is trying to show you. And you can apply that. You can apply those lessons. And And for her, she saw that these were very battered trees. These were trees that had been struck by lightning and some of them were half rotted but they were still standing. And to me it was symbolic of all the hardships that she had been through in her life and yet she was still living a life of adventure and joy.
Juravich: Standing tall like a redwood tree. Yes. Well in honor of the launch of the book You recently took grandma joy back to the great smoky mountains national park the place that started it all And I have a clip of her to play. Um, there's a creek in the background So you're going to hear that as well, but she's in the park and reflecting on her journey that began at 85 years old.
Grandma Joy: I never dreamt I'd be here when I was in my 90s. That's for darn sure. But everything is still beautiful and everything is a wonderful place to come. We've seen a lot of elk and we've seen 11 bears, believe it or not. Some little and some big, but it was a great day.
Juravich: How did it feel going back there to the place where it all began?
Ryan: Yeah, it is, it's coming home. There's a spirit to the land there that always makes me feel grounded and what's really important in life and I you know it was my reset it pulled me out of the darkness it wasn't just the park it was her being there with me of course but um that was the national park that I went to as a child I was very it's like it's nostalgic for that reason um I love Dolly Parton I love I love black bears. I love just the blue smoke as they call it. And the Chicana Hay is what the Native Americans, the Native Cherokee would describe the, you know, the spirit of the land down there. And I feel that every time.
And so I just thought, you know we're about to embark on this new wild ride. I have no idea what's about to happen as we head out on a 50 state book tour, Healing Across America is what it's called. And I think it's gonna be beautiful. I think, you now, the Smokies were the beginning of this 63 national park. Healing journey. Writing the book about it was its own healing journey and this road trip across the 50 states in support of this book is going to be its own healing. We are never healed. We're always healing. Life isn't like that. Hopefully if we're open to it, we're becoming more and more whole as we go along, but we have to understand that there's no finish line to healing.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News and we're talking with adventurer turned author Brad Ryan. He took his grandmother, Grandma Joy, to all 63 national parks and along the way they became famous and an inspiration. His new book is called "Grandma Joy and Me, a journey of healing one national park at a time." Coming up we're going to talk about Grandma Joy's sense of humor and we're gonna delve a little bit into Brad's backstory growing up in rural Ohio. That's when All Sides continues on 89 7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. From bison traffic jams to the eruption of Old Faithful to hard conversations about the past, Brad Ryan covered a lot of ground in his Ford Escape with his grandmother. He covered a a lot ground both literally and figuratively. And he writes about taking his 87-year-old grandmother on a journey to all 63 national parks. They finished the mission when she was 93. Brad's new book is "Grandma Joy and Me, a journey of healing one national park at a time." And he joins us today. Brad, thanks for being here.
Ryan: I'm loving it. Thank you.
Juravich: So in the book, you write that before your national parks journey, you said you always rushed the present, trying to collect accomplishments, hiking as fast as possible to get as many peaks as possible. Grandma Joy taught you to slow down a little bit. Tell me about that.
Ryan: Yeah, it's all in the company you keep, I think, how you move through life. And I was, and there's nothing wrong with that. We say, hike your own hike when you're on the Appalachian Trail because there's no agenda. You do what you need to do out there. We're all doing that healing work in our own way. And sometimes you need a hike alone. Sometimes you need get to that next town because you're running out of food and you've got to get there, right?
And, but for me, the outdoor, because I was, you know, I grew up. Feeling very, I wasn't athletic. I didn't fit in with the good old boys in Southeast Ohio, you know? So it's, it was for me, when I was 27 going on 28, I was out of the closet, but I wasn't really comfortable in my skin and I went out on that trail thinking, okay, if I grow my beard out and I smell horrible every day and my toenails are falling off and I actually hike from Georgia to Maine, and maybe, just maybe. Um I'm a I'm, a tough guy too, you know, and that was that was really the mentality. I was carrying so much baggage from the past and a lot of that had to do with the way my dad treated me, which was grandma Joy's eldest son and and then out there on the on the AT. It just um yeah, I'm sorry, I think I forgot your question. What did you say?
Juravich: No, Grandma Joy taught you to slow down.
Ryan: Well, yeah, so that's right. So the AT, you know, you're just, I got, I got swept up in that and it became like, how many miles can I do a day? And so I was, I was really, you know, my relationship with the outdoors was this idea of like, well, you just, you try to climb as many mountains as you can in one day. And that's, that's how you do it. And I loved that. I love the physical challenge of it. And there's a place for that and there's a time for that.
But then there's also a lot that you're missing. It's not just about the view from the summit. It's about all the beautiful things that are in nature along the way and if you're just looking up and rushing then yeah you're missing the colors of the lichen on the trees and the rocks and you're missing a caterpillar that might be on a leaf beside the trail or the really cool pattern on the the carapace of a bug and she would point these things out to me and I was like that is really cool I would I would have missed that
Juravich: Yeah, and you also write that she did not assume that she would see any of this again. I mean, she was a realist. She was looking mortality square in the eyes because she was doing this between the ages of 87 and 93. Did she ever talk to you about that when you were making plans, when you're saying, okay, next year, this is what we'll do? Because I feel like-
Ryan: Oh yeah, she'll joke. She'll say like, oh, if I'm around.
Juravich: If I'm around, yes, because I feel like the phrase, you know, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, apply here or something like that.
Ryan: Yeah, but that is what we do. We put dates on the calendars if death is not something that we really need to think about because it's out of our hands. The fact that we're all going to die is not a reason to not have an adventure next year. Put dates on a calendar.
Juravich: I want our listeners to hear more of Grandma Joy and her sense of humor. So here's a clip from your Instagram account. You and Grandma Joy are making what's called like an unboxing video. So your new book came in and you're seeing it for the first time and you are opening the box and she's reflecting on your travels.
Grandma Joy: We met some amazing people and saw amazing things, beautiful waterfalls, beautiful flowers, and beautiful, beautiful animals. And.
Brad Ryan: One naked man.
Grandma Joy: Oh my word, that was something else, I'll tell you that. You could tell it was really cold, too! Ha ha ha ha!
Brad Ryan: I didn't get to see it.
Grandma Joy: There wasn't much to see!
Juravich: And she ends with an oh dear, right? We can save the rest of that story for when our listeners read the book. We don't have to give that all away. But tell me about Grandma Joy's sense of humor and how it plays into her outlook on life. Her saying things like, yeah, let's make plans if I'm around. Yeah, tell me that.
Ryan: Well, if I don't kick the bucket, that's what she'll say. Yeah. I mean, it is just, it's the biggest misconception that I think the younger generation has about the older generation is that, and it might vary from person to person, but I think we underestimate the humor and the levity that the older generation has simply because they've been through it. And once again, they know it's really important. They don't sweat the small stuff and they can laugh. They can laugh about those things.
And it's really important, I think, for. The younger generation that is so hyper focused on, you know, one hurdle after the next to get that dream job and all of these things just to create a space in your life where you can just sit by a stream and laugh. It's vitally important.
Juravich: You also recently made a video with grandma joy where you're talking about how she is an absolute stickler for the rules And she wants to teach that to her followers. She wants people to be respectful of nature. So let's listen
Grandma Joy: you have to stay 25 yards back from an elk. And that is two school busses. And if you see a bear, you have to stay four school busses away. And in some of the parks, we've seen very foolish people get practically on top of the wild animals to take a picture. You ought to use this, if you used to use common sense... By gosh, you wouldn't be in any trouble. But I think half of these people don't have any sense.
Juravich: So she goes on to say there that she wants to knock some sense into people with her cane. So what did Grandma Joy learn about the rules of nature, the rules of national parks, and why does she want to pass this on?
Ryan: Well, it's so important in the national park community, the outdoors community, we have a set of principles called leave no trace. And that what we want our next generation to see. Now everything is impermanent, right? We don't wanna accelerate that by defacing rocks and plucking wildflowers out of the ground or letting your dog use the restroom on the base of a redwood tree that has very shallow fragile root systems and things like that.
So, the rules aren't there to be, you know, ultra rigid or to make your time in the outdoors any less fun. It's so that you don't fall off a waterfall to your death, things like that. But it's also because it's not yours. It belongs to everyone. So we're all stewards of the park when we go in there, ideally. And we love them too much. We know what's at stake. And we don't need to, when you're there, you're a guest. So tread lightly. And she believes that.
Juravich: This is All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. We're talking with Brad Ryan. He and his grandmother are from Ohio. They're from Zanesville. And Brad took his grandma Joy to visit all 63 national parks. His new book is called "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time." I want to venture into your past a little bit. You tackle a lot of it in your book. You mentioned it a moment ago. You write about not feeling like you could ever meet your father's expectations. You were supposed to be a sports star, a man's man. You write, in my hometown, a man worth is tallied by the number of points on the white-tailed buck that he shot. So I'm sure a lot of people listening right now can understand that. Talk a little bit about how you constantly felt like you were disappointing your father.
Ryan: Well, he made it very clear, you know, and it was just as simple as not striking out. He was my little league coach. And maybe if I wanted to apply myself, I could have been great at that, but that's not who I was. And I think we're, as a society, I think, we've evolved a lot and parents are much better now about letting their kids be who they're born to be without imposing that because so many of us had to go through that.
And so it was, just this. Yeah, but it was not a source of shame when I would get a straight A report card. And I was just a nerdy kid. I wanted my nose to be in a book, and if I wasn't reading, I wanted to be outside catching animals in the creek, or lightning bugs in a jar, or whatever it may be. I was a good kid, but there was just always this sense. And I think he sensed that, you know. A little bit feminine, a little bit not what I was hoping. And you just sense that, you just know it. You don't know who you are at that age. Or at least I didn't. It wasn't a thought in my brain in that way. But I knew that I was more comfortable with the women in my family. I felt safer with them than I did with my grandfather and with him.
Juravich: Yeah. And you talk about how your father wanted you to be the sports star, wanted you to go hunting with him. But at one point in the book, you mentioned that, you know, Grandma Joy said to you that she knew who you were, right? Like, and she knew.
Ryan: On the first road trip, she said that.
Juravich: Yeah, and what did that mean to you that you to hear her say like, I mean, she never told you that she knew who you were, but yeah, that's the yeah.
Ryan: Which was the kick in the butt because I'm like, all these years of contorting and shape shifting and hiding and people pleasing, it was all energy expended that didn't need to be expended because they knew. She said, I'm old, I not senile. Like I knew who you were. And...
Juravich: But she didn't know that maybe you needed to hear that.
Ryan: She did on that trip. I think I think by then she knew that there was a bandage that needed to be ripped off And it did it set the course for the whole adventure that came because if she had not been So loving I mean that was that was the greatest healing act that probably ever happened Within my family was that simple moment of being around the campfire and having her just say you don't need to worry about this anymore I love you If I loved you when you said if I loved You when you were two and I accepted you when you were two, then I do now. That's all there is to it. God love you. Gave me a little pat on the shoulder and off to the tent she went and I just sat there by the crackling fire with the caddied crickets thinking what just happened?
Juravich: The sentence you've been waiting for your whole life, and you're like, oh, there it is, and then she just goes to bed.
Ryan: And it happened at our first campfire. Yeah, and then, yeah, just off to bed. No big deal. Yeah. Yeah.
Juravich: So you, through the years of traveling to the national parks, you realized that the road to healing from your past was not gonna be linear. You called going to every national park an arbitrary victory. What would the real victory be?
Ryan: Well, the real victory is knowing that you're doing the work each and every day. That you're listening more than you're speaking sometimes. That you are approaching conflict with curiosity rather than anger or an agenda to prove a point or to win an argument.
There's so much healing that comes just from saying, okay, maybe I'm not the only one who has trauma. Maybe I'm the only who has a history and a story that That hasn't been fully heard or recognized and some of that is by free will some of its generational cultural but the curiosity that I Learned to have is what diffused all the anger and the judgment and and made the the road to forgiveness much easier
Juravich: So, so going to all 63 national parks, great, great accomplishment, but.
Ryan: Well, it was an excuse to lock her in the car and interrogate her.
Juravich: Yeah.
Ryan: You know I say now I can look back on it and say I put her on trial. I put it on trial for the sins of my father.
Juravich: Yeah, basically she was representing your whole, that whole side of the family.
Ryan: Yes, he wasn't around so she was going to hear me out.
Juravich: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so there was the trauma from your father. There was the divorce. There's other family members There's your grandmother, but while trying to find the healing that you were looking for you learned that grandma joy herself She really lacked an emotional vocabulary, right? She didn't know how to express her feelings. She was never taught how to do that And usually she just changed the subject on you or deflected You would sit there and pour your heart out and she would reply with God. Love you, you know Um, tell me about that realization that you had to be okay with what she had to offer, even if it was just, God love you.
Ryan: Right. Yeah, I mean, it seems like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? A woman of the silent generation with this highly sensitive, empathic, won't shut up, grandson.
Juravich: They're called the silent generation for a reason, right?
Ryan: Yeah, and it's very true, and so when they grow up, it's not just that they don't say it. I wonder sometimes if they even are wired to have those thoughts, to process their emotions in the same way. They just accept things as they are and live with it, and I don't think they dwell on it so much. It doesn't mean that it doesn't affect their behavior or the way they move through world, but their internal world is completely different. Than ours, or hers is very different from mine, at least.
And so it was about sort of, yeah, I don't wanna give it away, but there was a big fight on that first major road trip around the US, and it's a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding in how she expressed fear. Yeah. And I'm seeing this moment as a lack of gratitude and just completely insensitive and evil, and she's just not able to say, I feel vulnerable. Hmm. I need some support here. I'm scared Yeah, and so I had to I had two get to a point where yeah She says I don't know all those big fancy college words you use and I thought wow I'm kind of a jerk Yeah
Juravich: But it was such a learning experience. Your book has a lot about generational trauma in it, where one generation passes on their trauma in one way or another in the next generation and the next iteration. And at some point, you realized, I need to be the cycle breaker. Right. Right. Break a chain. You gotta break the chain of generational trauma because you can't go back to the silent generation and fix the way they all felt, right?
Ryan: That's right, that's right. Yeah, so yeah, tell me just a little bit more about being that cycle breaker, break the chains. I went to a wholeness retreat with Alanis Morissette, the singer. Oh, I love that. Okay, yes, yes. And it was a three day coming home to wholenes retreat. And I told her my story about generational trauma and I was writing this book and her eyes lit up because she's just so hungry for that kind of, she's very passionate about it.
Juravich: "Jagged Little Pill" was very important to me. Oh, was it? Yeah. Oh, that was my album. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: And, and I told her everything and I said, you know, where is that book, Alanis, where's that book about how you can live your life joyfully when you are so stuck with this baggage of I didn't get that birthright wisdom and nourishment and presence and gratitude and acceptance and all these things that I, that I desperately wanted as a child that I never got, how do you Just. Heal that? How do you heal that within yourself?
And she said, I think you're going to write that book. Where's that book? She said, you're gonna write that book. And that was the, um, the, the aha moment that I had that, yeah, I'm onto something here. Like my life experience actually needs to be shared because it's a universal reality that most of us are living with, but we don't know how to really let it go. And you realize exactly what you said. That you cannot go back, this goes so deep. This goes back further than we'll ever be able to understand because those folks are dead. They didn't write it down, they didn't talk about it. Maybe they didn't even process it. But our DNA somehow knows all that stuff, you know, and it lives in us.
Juravich: Well, and now that we all know that this book is blessed by Alanis Morissette. Yeah, thank you for the acknowledgments. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Brad Ryan, a veterinarian, a wildlife conservationist, a mental health advocate, and, now, an author. He took his grandma, Grandma Joy, to all 63 national parks along the way they became famous and an inspiration. The book is called "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing One National Park at time." So coming up, we're gonna talk about how things changed for Brad and Joy after their journey went viral on social media and viral in traditional media too. And we'll hear more about some of their most recent adventures. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. When Brad Ryan's parents got divorced, it ripped his family apart. But he found a way to reconnect with his estranged grandmother by way of the national parks. The journey made them famous. At 93 years old, Grandma Joy was the oldest person to visit all 63 national parks, even the one in American Samoa. She achieved this goal thanks to her grandson and his Ford Escape, which took them across thousands of miles and through dozens of states. Brad Ryan turned their story of adventure and connection into a book, "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing, one national park at a time." Thanks again for being here, Brad.
Ryan: Thank you.
Juravich: Whatever happened to that Ford Escape that you started in, in 2015?
Ryan: It was a hybrid vehicle and the engine stopped working and it was like $10,000 to get it replaced.
Juravich: Okay, it's not, it should be in a museum somewhere.
Ryan: I wish I had that vehicle, I know, but it was a really great car and it was nice because when we would stop to see the wildlife, it would just be very quiet, the engine would shut down and it didn't scare the wildlife away. That was the best part about that car besides the gas mileage on it. All right. Yeah.
Juravich: And also, the dedication of your book, your book is dedicated to Jane Goodall. Oh yes. Why'd you do that, why?
Ryan: Because she was my hero and I met her when I was working at the Cincinnati Zoo and I told her my life story in like 10 seconds or 15 seconds the best I could and she wrote for Brad, follow your dream and I cherished that more than anything and then when I in vet school I got to meet her again and by then the lines were so long that she wasn't personalizing the books and she just wrote her name and I had an original mint condition copy of "The Chimpanzees of Gombe," her seminal study on the chimps. I told her, you know, I met you back then and it's a beautiful story because we posed for a photo and she, and then I went to the side and she waved me back and she said I think my tongue was sticking out and we took another photo and then she wavied me back and said I think my eyes were closed and she goes this time we're just going to look into each other's eyes.
And I have all three photos of that whole series and I told that story and I said I just want you to know I'm in my last year of vet school and all the times that I thought I was gonna give up. I opened that book where you said, follow your dream, and I held onto that with an iron fist, and she opened her book, she opened the book and she wrote, for Brad, congratulations, you followed your dream.
Juravich: Aww.
Ryan: And this is a love letter to matriarchs. And to me, Jane Goodall was the mother of mothers.
Juravich: Okay, so you got Grandma Joy and you got Jane Goodall.
Ryan: Yeah, I have a thing for old ladies I really do
Juravich: And then one other question. Your Instagram handle is Dr. Hellbender. Tell me why. I mean, I did a show about Hellbenders, so I know what they are, you know, in the creek bed and going under the rock to grab them. But why is your Instagram handle Dr.Hellbender?
Ryan: Well, Hellbender was... I had that handle before I went to vet school, so part of it was aspirational. I wanted to live, I wanted make that handle work. I actually am a doctor. And then Hellbendr, it's hard to get, it's easy to get love for pandas and cheetahs. It's harder for an animal that looks like that. Like a slug. Yeah, they're brown and wrinkly, and they're not the most charismatic, but they are endangered, and they do live in the Appalachian Mountains, and Hellbentr was the name that I took. As a trail name, and nobody uses their real name on the Appalachian Trail, so I was Hellbender. And to me it was also, I understood that I had been living sort of in the shadows, I was hiding, and that's what Hellbenders do, and they come out at night and I felt like kind of that was my spirit animal in a way.
Juravich: Okay, all right, your spirit animal. Well, you opened part two of your book at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is Ohio's only national park. Just briefly, how does Ohio's national park compare to the others? How's Ohio doing there?
Ryan: Well, if you're not from here, there are a handful of parks because of the fact that they don't have these huge mountains and things like that, that they get a little bit of a bad rep. But Cuyahoga Valley National Park is there because of a few different... When I think of Cuyhoga Valley national park, I think about the ecological restoration that has happened there, the resilience of nature. They used to call it the river that burned because it was so polluted that the river would literally catch on fire.
And now you can see. Great blue herons and bald eagles and river otters. And it's, I think it's an important message for the world. And it, it's one of the most, in my mind, it's the most beautiful environmental success stories. And that also preserves the history of the Erie Canal and a lot of great biking up there, but it's not going to be Glacier. It's not gonna be Acadia. So I think you have to learn that, just appreciate where you are and not compare everything. Like don't, it doesn't all have to be. Yeah, you know the most inspiring landscape you've ever seen look deeper
Juravich: Let's talk for a minute about your story going viral. It was a photo from Acadia National Park that started it all. This is in 2019. So you're already two years into your journey. You have more than 20 parks under your belt. You might be nearing 30 in your adventure. Tell me the story of that photo that started your viral moment.
Ryan: We were on that New England leg with my friend from vet school, Dr. Jessica Christine. And I was living in D.C. Working at the National Zoo. Logistically, it was gonna be, we were gonna lose too much time if I went all the way back to Duncan Falls to get her and then drove all the up to Maine. And so she came along for the ride. She picked Grandma Joy up in Duncan Falls and we were there. So most of the time, we're by ourselves, so I don't have any photos of us together unless it's a selfie.
And Jessica was there and so we had this. Beautiful morning and we were on sand beach in Acadia and it was just throw your arms up grandma. Yeah. You know and just it was real. It was just pure joy and that video or that that photograph was tagged. I tagged it and Acadia said what's this this is a love this photo tell us more about you and your grandmother and I told them the story about she'd never seen a mountain all the whole the whole thing and they're like this is amazing you're trying to see all 63 national parks. And they said, we want to hear the, yeah, give us a blurb. We're going to post it on our Instagram. And almost two months went by.
And then on Sunday morning, when everybody was waking up to the news that there had been two back-to-back mass shootings, one in Dayton, or one was the first one, I believe, was in El Paso, Texas at a Walmart. And then right after that, a mass shooting in Dayton Ohio within like 13 hours. And so Sunday morning everyone's having their coffee and they're like, oh my gosh. One was a right wing extremist, one was a left wing extremists. And to me, it was just symbolic of this is not what America is from my point of view, from what I've seen and experienced in the national parks. And I think that because Acadia shared it that morning, people were looking for an antidote. Joy, they were looking for joy. Yeah, just a counterbalance to that ugly, ugliness and heaviness and tragedy. And so that's what our story broke through that. Wow.
Juravich: So your private journey is now public. Everyone wants to know more. Did Grandma Joy take to the fame right away or was she a little freaked out? She was overwhelmed. Yeah. What about you? Were you overwhelmed too?
Ryan: A little bit because I remember at the end of the first week, because I knew that there were the opportunities here now that weren't there before. I wasn't setting out to do that, but we were corporate sponsors were knocking on our door right away. So in one way it's like, this is really exciting because now I think we can make this happen. We're actually gonna get to the finish line before Alaska was a big question mark, American Samoa, Virgin Islands, Hawaii, those were all huge question marks for a vet student with as much student loan debt as I had, right? So that was great, but then I remember at the end of that first week Once again trying not to get fired from my job and doing all these interviews I remember ordering a large pizza and just curling up in the fetal position on my living room floor because you do feel very exposed
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Brad Ryan about his new book, "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time." Your book ends with the 63rd National Park, which was in American Samoa, but your story doesn't end there. The book has an epilog. You're still traveling. I found a video on your Facebook page related to this journey continuing that I thought was cute. So I wanted, let's listen.
Grandma Joy: Hi everybody, this is Grandma Joy. Brad and I have been keeping a secret from you. In December, we're heading to Antarctica on the Kurtigruten Expedition. That will be our fourth continent and on our trip around the world. I'll probably feed my rear off, but I get to see the penguins, so that'll be a kind of a surprise at the end. You hope you come with us and have a great time!
Juravich: So, I mean, that's adorable. She sounds adorable. So Antarctica, you've done Africa, Europe. What are you, what's going on? What's this new goal on your new bucket list?
Ryan: Well, the short answer is that her Instagram followers started bullying me. Oh, no. I love all of you. But you're like, Grandma Joyce, she's not done. Where's she going now? We love this too much. So the 63 US national parks are over. Where are you going next? And so I said, well, seven continents seems crazy. I mean, we had to get a passport to go to American Samoa because they have their own immigration system, despite the fact that it's a US territory. And while we were there, they talked us into flying over to Western Samoa, which I'm really glad we did. And so she got her first passport at 91. So I think because we had that, it just was like, OK, well, why not? Let's try to do the seven continents. And so we've done five.
Juravich: Okay, so what so which so you've done five what two do you still have?
Ryan: We still have Australia and Asia, so we're hoping to do Thailand and Australia as one trip. Okay. That'll be later in the year.
Juravich: After, so after this book tour.
Ryan: After the book tour.
Juravich: That's your plan.
Ryan: Yeah, well, the book is actually being released in Australia, so maybe we'll be doing some press over there as well.
Juravich: Wow. Okay. So, I mean, before we end, because we're running out of time, a great theme of the book is Grandma Joy embracing the joy of life, despite all the loss she's had, the hard times that she's lived through. Tell us about how you learn to look for joy from joy.
Ryan: Well, yes, more than anything, I think to myself, I mean, I'm dealing with some heavy stuff right now with my dog, he's eight years old, just turned eight, and I probably am only gonna have him another month or two because of cancer. And yeah, he is actually at MedVet right now with my mother getting his third radiation treatment. And it's just, he was my best friend.
Juravich: Is that Otis or the?
Ryan: That's Evan.
Juravich: Evan. Okay, there's two dogs and if you follow him on Instagram, there are two dogs. They're with us a lot.
Ryan: Yeah, and so I'm remembering that at the end of the day, this is a book about acknowledging the fact that we rarely have any window in our life where we're not carrying some tragedy with us or dealing with some grief, trauma, et cetera, and life is about this balancing act of holding it in your hands at the same time. There's the sad, there's the regret and just the heaviness of these curve balls that get thrown at us, and yet. Still the miracle of our lives that are still we still have it right we still have air in our lungs and and how to let the joy win how to let the scale always it's easier said than done sometimes depending on what's going on but to try to keep things in perspective and know that at the end life at the End of the day is about letting the joy win and she has been through a lot of adversity which you'll read about in the book and the fact that she just she's still out there smiling she doesn't live her life a lot people I think when they lose children or they lose their spouse.
It's almost like they feel guilty having joy, experiencing new adventures and laughing and smiling. And no, I believe that you honor those people by doing the opposite. And she doesn't think about it that way, but that's just how she lives.
Juravich: Well, and it's pretty amazing that Joy's parents gave her the name Joy, not knowing what she would accomplish in her 90s. Because, I mean, it would still be a cute book if you were with Grandma Peg or Grandma Ethel, but maybe not as poignant.
Ryan: I think so. Yeah. Yeah, she is she is joy incarnate. Well.
Juravich: Just to end on, there's a quote in here where Grandma Joy said not to waste a day, no one is promised tomorrow, love withheld a day too long is a game of Russian roulette we don't have to play. So just tell me about, you know, we have just a minute, tell me, tell about thinking about the rest of the journey with Grandma Joy, what do you think about?
Ryan: Well, I think about making sure that the lessons that we've learned from the journey are applied. And so, I'm less interested in rehashing the past, especially now that I've written the book. It stands on its own, and for me, I can lay it down. I'm happy to talk about it, but I'm not interested in re-hashing the pass and re-traumatizing myself the way I have for so long. And so with the limited amount of time that I have left with Grandma Joy, we don't talk about the past so much. We just look towards the future. Or even better yet, just the here and now. That's where we're at now.
Juravich: We've been talking with Brad Ryan, a veterinarian, wildlife conservationist, mental health advocate, and now published author. He took his grandma to all 63 national parks along the way they became famous and an inspiration. And his new book is called "Grandma Joy and Me, A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time." Thank you so much for joining us today.
Ryan: Hey, thank you so much.
Juravich: This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich, thanks for listening.