Corey Inscoe of Cary didn’t even hesitate.

“This might be the only opportunity to see the country with Paw-Paw,” he recalled in his blog, an electronic diary he published on the Internet chronicling the 32-day trip he took this summer with his grandfather Walter Inscoe and sister Madison — one that covered over 10,000 miles from June 10 through July 12.

This trip was not part of his original summer plans.

Corey, 21, a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in journalism, was fretting over his impending graduation and anticipating a summer filled with internships to prepare for his entry into the real world: jobs, bills and starting a career.

But Grandpa Walter had other ideas.

Walter, 81, a retired U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant, was the mastermind behind the impromptu expedition, coming up with the idea after losing his wife Mildred in December after more than 60 years of marriage.

“So I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself and I called my son and said, ‘what do you think if I ask my two grandchildren to go on this trip?’” Walter said. “They said yes, and I started making plans.”

Armed with his new black Cadillac and On Star GPS system, he planned their route from Wilson to California and back, a journey that took them through more than a dozen states and more Americana sightseeing destinations than most people see in a lifetime.

Corey was the natural choice as chronicler of their adventures, hooking up his computer every night in a hotel room and blogging. Little sister Madison, 16, a junior at Cary High School, became their photographer.

Grandpa Walter was the storyteller and Corey and Madison were privy to some unexpected information about their mild-mannered grandfather.

“He was quite the troublemaker as a kid, the ‘bad boy’ of the neighborhood,” Corey said. While staying with Walter’s friend Lester in Albuquerque, N.M., they were treated to some of those accounts, along with some history lessons from Walter’s years spent in the military.

“A few of our stops were Air Force bases that he was stationed at during his career,” Corey said.

Corey said his favorite part was driving along California State Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

“The geography of this area was just astounding to me,” he said. “It was so beautiful seeing mountains running right to the ocean with cliffs and rocks scattered all over the place.”

Among their other destinations, which included the Grand Canyon, Gettysburg, Pa., Las Vegas and New Orleans, one was very special: visiting Mildred’s grave site at the famous Arlington National Cemetery.

“It [was] a fitting way to finish a trip that we know she would have loved to take herself,” Corey wrote. “I’d like to think that she was with us along the way.”

After paying their respects to “Maw-Maw,” they saw John F. Kennedy’s and Robert F. Kennedy’s burial sites and visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which Corey learned is monitored by a guard 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, rain or shine.

Madison, who said she slept most of the time in the car and let her brother do the driving, was equally moved by the time she spent with her grandpa, though she admits it took some getting used to.

“It was weird because I haven’t lived with my brother for four years,” she said. “Now suddenly I’m living with two guys.”

In the end, Corey may have benefited more from his cross-country adventure than from any journalism internship, because it got him back into the habit of writing every day. He hopes to segue his blog into an article for a local travel magazine.

Walter knew what he was doing the whole time.

“I spent more time with them in those 32 days than I have their whole lives,” he said. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars in exchange for it.”

Read Corey’s blog and see Madison’s pictures at inscoe.wordpress.com.