Just a few weeks shy of her 101st birthday, Ruby Holt was able to see the wide expanse of the ocean for the first time in her life.

The 100-year-old lived on a farm in rural Tennessee her entire life, spending her days working and raising four children. She had only left her home state once before and had never laid eyes on the sea.

“I’ve heard people talk about it and how wonderful it was and wanted to see it, but I never had the opportunity to do so,” Holt said, according to The Associated Press.

Holt lives at Brookdale Senior Living Solutions in Columbia, Tenn. The assisted living home made her wish possible with the help of the Wish of a Lifetime organization. According to Mark Davis, the executive director of Brookdale’s Sterling House, two employees filled out a wish application for Holt after they found out she had never seen the ocean.

“They did a water gun fight out in the courtyard during the summer and water got brought up, the beach, and that’s what she told the girls,” Davis told the AP. The two workers, Debbie Surgeon and Tracy Marcy, submitted the application and planned the trip before Holt’s 101st birthday in December.

Holt arrived at the Gulf of Mexico in her wheelchair, aided by Surgeon and Marcy. They brought her to the edge of the water and guided her as she walked across the sand for the first time. While Holt was amazed by the ocean, she also kept mentioning how cold it was — and was soon taken back inside.

“When we got to the room yesterday, she was just pointing out the ocean and, you know, her facial expressions and … she was just speechless,” Davis said, according to the AP.

In this age of globalization, study abroad, and family vacations, most people have seen the sea — or at least several different states — by the time they are teens. But Holt was happy in her corner of the world for a century before deciding to go on the trip of her liftime.

“We don’t have nothing like this in Giles County,” Holt said.