Taking an Audacious Step for Peace

Women on Years-Long 'Walk' Around the World

So a few women got together and decided to have an adventure.

They slept on floors in India and sofas in Egypt, crashed in an empty house in Morocco and once spent the night in a van in the Australian outback.

College graduates on a ritual backpacking trip?

Bachelorettes looking for one last fling?

Not quite.

They're mothers, grandmothers and even a great-grandma. There is a retired schoolteacher, an accountant, a former college dean. One of them is 79 years old and in a wheelchair.

In October 2005, they cashed out their retirement accounts, sold their condos and furniture, and decided they would "walk" around the world.

It's "Shirley Valentine" meets "Eat, Pray, Love."

The mastermind behind the journey is Audri Scott Williams, 53, who was once a dean at the former Charles County Community College in La Plata.

The group, which arrived at the White House yesterday, began its quest in one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions that it takes a lifetime to reach.

While cleaning up after volunteering at a youth program, Williams asked her friend Karen Hunter Watson, "Who wants to walk around the world with me?"

Watson, 58, a grandmother, had spent a good deal of her life doing clerical work, accounting, managing offices and raising two sons.