.....but adventure is more than just a tonic for tedium or a way to stimulate our mental capacities. It is as essential to our existence as the air we breathe or the water we drink. Colonel Vaughan's home state of Alaska offers a richness and variety of adventures you won't find anywhere else.

Gain new perspectives.

Perhaps one of the most magical things about Alaska is that it puts so many of your dream adventures within reach. Natural wonders and wildlife are easily accessible in so many ways, letting you form a three-dimensional understanding that goes far beyond textbook knowledge.

From a floatplane or helicopter in Juneau, you get a very different view of the tidewater glacier you admired from the sea just the day before. Whereas then it appeared as a massive cliff face towering overhead, now you can look down and see the sinuous curves of the frozen river, observe how it flows from high mountain peaks, and admire the tattered texture of its cracked and pitted surface. Trekking on the glacial surface gives you yet another perspective, as you gaze into a crevasse that recedes to indigo and ponder the moraines formed from rocks that may have once stubbed the toe of a mastodon.

Even Alaska's "tame" experiences bring you new insights. At the Kroschel Films Wildlife and Educational Center near Haines, experience an emotional close encounter with the region's orphaned animals. Wolves, lynx, reindeer, wolverines, foxes, porcupines - it's amazing to be close enough to these reclusive animals to see the multicolored shading on individual hairs, watch their pupils change shape and their ears gyrate as they catch sudden movement in the bushes and discover how reindeer hooves actually change texture to adapt to the season.