Alan Adaschik's lifelong dream was to visit Alaska; America's last frontier and a place that abounds with wildlife and unspoiled wilderness. Upon retiring, Al and his wife, Gayle, sold everything and bought a motorhome to make his dream a reality. An Alaskan Adventure, is a narrative about Al and Gayle's trip which highlights the places they visited and the wonderful things they experienced along the way. The adventure begins in Indiana. After negotiating the traffic jams of Chicago, Al and Gayle traveled I-94 across the Northern Great Plains visiting Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana along the way. Heading North, they toured Glacier National Park and continued on to visit Yoho, Banff, and Jasper national parks in Canada. Afterwards, Al & Gayle picked up the Alaskan Highway which took them to the realization of Al's dream.
The remainder of the book is about Al & Gayle's travels around the Great Alaskan Triangle, a circuit of 900 miles defined by the cities of Tok, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. While negotiating this triangle, Al and Gayle's primary goal was to find gold in one of the many streams they crossed. However, they also hoped to find a Wooly Mammoth frozen in a glacier. Toward these ends, they took side trips to the White Mountains National Recreation Area, Denali National Park, the Top of the World Highway, and the towns of Homer and Chicken. An Alaskan Adventure is not just a book about touring Alaska. Al is an environmentalist. This being the case, a theme evident throughout the book is that the beauty we find around us is fleeting and if we, as a species, continue to over-populate our world, what we see and value so highly is sure to go away.
Alan Adaschik was raised in Brooklyn, New York. After high school, he attended the University of Michigan as an Aerospace Engineering student and a cadet in its Naval ROTC program. Subsequently, Al qualified for Navy flight training and received his wings as a jet Fighter Pilot in 1966. After completing his military obligation, Al went back to school and earned an MBA in Finance from Long Island University. Al has worked as a Flight Test Conductor for the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, a Financial Analyst for the Singer Company, and a Senior Financial Analyst for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Fed up with the corporate world, in 1976, Al and his first wife moved to Florida and opened a school of Olympic style gymnastics in the Fort Lauderdale area. Al eventually ended up being a Financial Administrator for the City of Fort Lauderdale and retired from that position in 2001. Al also hosted a web site called the Constitution Forum (now off line), and has written two other books; While We Sleep--A Story of Government Without Law and 100 Years of Deception--A Blueprint for the Destruction of a Nation.