By Asia Nail
The Truth Reporter
There are some bus rides where the snacks disappear before you reach the highway.
Then there are bus rides where the food becomes part of the story.
On this trip, Clara Petty brought fried chicken. Somebody brought pound cake. Other women packed their own favorites. Before long, food traveled up and down the aisle as 55 mature women shared what they had.
It was part road trip, part rolling family reunion.
And Chicago was waiting.
Petty recently led the Savvy Seniors on a day trip to the Obama Presidential Center, where the women explored the museum, visited the Chicago Public Library and took in the Center’s public spaces.
Three travelers were in their 80s, including two women who were 88.
Petty will turn 70 next July, but she doesn’t see age as a reason to stop discovering the world.
“Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I stop wanting to experience life,” she says. “I still want to go places, try new things and gain new knowledge.”
From Wellness to Wanderlust
Savvy Seniors began as a wellness and exercise program when Petty served as executive director of Monroe Street Neighborhood Center.
Then came the trips.
Cleveland. Plays. Eventually, a longer trip to the Ark Encounter, in Williamstown Kentucky.
Petty thought retirement would mean leaving the trips behind.
“I was like, girl, I’m about to retire, about to go home and do my own thing,” she recalls.
Instead, the travel continued.
Today, Petty describes her role a little differently.
“I’m curating experiences for those who still have a lot of life to live,” she shares.
That was exactly the idea behind the day trip to Chicago. She wanted the women to enjoy themselves, but she also wanted them to encounter history and leave with something to talk about.
The Obama Presidential Center’s museum tells the story of Barack and Michelle Obama, their White House years and the broader history surrounding their journey. The four-level museum includes campaign artifacts, films, historical exhibits, a full-scale Oval Office replica and Michelle Obama’s clothing and other White House memorabilia.
For Petty, it was an uplifting classroom.
“There It Is!”
The excitement started before they entered the building.
As the bus turned onto Stony Island Avenue, the Center came into view.
“There it is!”
The women shouted it again.
And again.
Petty laughs remembering the moment.
“It was like a bus full of teenagers,” she says, smiling.
Waiting outside was a young woman who had come to meet the group because she was Miss Gloria’s niece.
“Are you from Toledo?” she asked.
She took the group’s picture, then joined her aunt inside the museum.
A sweet Toledo connection, right in the middle of Chicago.
A Library Card, Then History
Petty and her mother, Mary Connor, stopped first at the Chicago Public Library branch located on the Center’s campus to get library cards. Several other women followed.
The campus also includes beautifully landscaped gardens and public spaces, giving the women plenty to explore.
And Petty had planned carefully.
She knew time mattered. The group had entered the museum at 2 p.m. and needed to leave later that evening for the long ride home.
She had intentionally planned the excursion as a day trip to keep the experience more affordable.
So the women made the most of the hours they had.
And there was plenty to see.
Walking Through History
The museum brought back memories for many of the women.
The “Yes We Can” exhibit features artifacts and media from Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, including 440 campaign buttons.
For the Savvy Seniors, seeing that history was emotional.
On the bus, the women talked about the joy they felt when Obama won the 2008 election.
“The world was so hopeful,” Petty remembers. “There was so much possibility in that moment.”
She also remembered the powerful sense of belonging many in our country felt during that time.
“The United States belongs to all of us,” she says.
That sentiment continued as the women moved through the museum.
They saw historical exhibits, watched videos and read statements that connected the Obamas’ story to larger chapters in American history.
“Standing there, reading the statements and quotes, took me right back in time to so many amazing moments in American history,” Petty explains.
Then came the Oval Office.
On Level 4, visitors can step into a full-scale replica of the Oval Office and sit behind the Resolute Desk for photographs.
The women also stopped to take in something else.
Michelle Obama’s clothes.
The exhibit features several outfits from her years in the White House.
“Those boots were bad,” Petty says with a playful, “Woo-wee!” while recalling the black, thigh-high suede boots displayed in the museum.
Then came another favorite: basketball.
Obama’s love for the sport has its own place in the Center, including an NBA-regulation basketball court.
Every turn gave the women another reason to pause, look closer and take it all in. For Petty, that is exactly what travel should do.
Never Too Old to Learn
She wants the women to take their time when they need to, but she never wants them to stop exploring.
The museum also places the Obama story within a larger history, including the people and movements that helped make his presidency possible. The Foundation says its exhibits explore historical predecessors, the events and movements surrounding the Obamas, and the continuing work of democracy.
Petty knows her generation was not always taught the full story of American history. She encourages older adults to keep learning, to ask questions and to understand the ideals that shape the country.
“I look for places when I travel that offer us some history,” she says. “We’re never too old to learn.”
For the women in their 80s, the trip also carried a powerful personal meaning.
They lived through eras when seeing a Black president was something they never expected.
Now they were standing inside a presidential center dedicated to that history.
Petty was especially glad her mother and longtime Savvy Seniors elders were there to experience it.
“Don’t Miss Out on Life”
By the time the women returned to the bus, everyone had something to discuss.
“Did you see this?”
“Did you see that?”
“Did you make it to the garden?”
Each woman had taken away something different.
Petty says that is part of the beauty of traveling together.
Her longtime bus driver, Eric Featherland, has driven for Savvy Seniors for about five years and has become part of the family.
Petty made sure he had a ticket.
“He truly makes our travel special,” she says. “He takes good care of us.”
That same care shows up among the women.
She wants people who are nervous about traveling, or who think they are too old, to remember what is still possible.
Her message is simple.
“Don’t miss out on life,” Petty says. “Don’t let your age or your health deter you from seeing this world because there’s so much to see.”
A Rolling Family Reunion
That is what Clara Petty hopes people understand about Savvy Seniors. The trips are not about being a certain age or moving at a certain pace. They are about continuing to experience life.
And so they keep going.
From wellness programs to Chicago, Petty has watched Savvy Seniors grow into something bigger than she ever imagined.
A group of women became a community.
A bus became a gathering place.
And a day in Chicago became another memory they could carry home.