POST FALLS - Margaret Wilson is about embark on a six-week, 10,000-mile journey to fight diabetes.

And the 69-year-old Post Falls woman who is battling the disease isn't about to let her age and the fact that she's traveling by herself deter her from the mission.

"We need to find a cure for diabetes," she said. "I don't want my grandkids to end up like me, my mom or my granddad. When you take five shots (of insulin) a day to the stomach, you want to do something about it. I want to live another 20 years like my mom did."

Wilson will leave in her 2011 Buick Lucerne on April 16 to travel halfway across the country, stopping at grocery stores along the way and setting up tables to distribute diabetes information and recipes, and seek donations for the American Diabetes Association.

"I want to encourage people to get tested for diabetes," she said. "Catch it early if you can."

She'll head to San Diego, travel across the Southwest to Texas, then head to the Midwest and return to Post Falls.

"I want to go the whole way (across the country), but I don't have enough funds for gas and rooms," she said, adding that she's hoping to make it across the country next year for a similar trip.

To stretch her resources and reduce travel expenses, Wilson is soliciting help from senior centers along the way with meals and perhaps a place to stay. Three oil changes have been donated. She plans to only eat at a restaurant once per day. When possible, she'll stay with friends or relatives.

Wilson said she doesn't fear traveling by herself.

"I've traveled a lot alone," she said. "There's no sense in sitting in the house afraid."

Wilson said she plans to fund more than half of the trip herself. She's paying $3,000 for travel expenses, but is seeking $2,000 worth of sponsorships to help with such expenses. Any sponsorships received above her travel costs will go toward the association.

Sponsorships should be sent to Wilson at P.O. Box 274, Post Falls, ID 83877. For more information, call her at 755-0282.

The North Idaho and Eastern Washington chapter of the diabetes association, which Wilson has contacted about the trip, has given her materials to distribute and send donations to the association in with.

Ted Duncan, director of the local chapter, said he could immediately tell that Wilson is serious about her mission.

"She's very passionate about this," Duncan said. "She's the type of person who, if they want to do something, they're going to do it. She wants to do something for the next generation."

Wilson had to start taking pills and watching her diet due to having Type 2 diabetes when she was 50. Her mom had to have one leg amputated due to having the disease, while her grandfather had both his legs amputated.

About 29.1 million people in the country - 9.3 percent of the population - have diabetes, according to a 2014 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the cases have Type 2, which results from cells not using insulin properly. Type 1, formerly called juvenile diabetes, results from destruction of insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Both Types 1 and 2 can't be cured, only controlled.