I stumbled onto Steve Block’s site about his BelAir boat while starting to figure out what is involved in getting an old car to float, and soon was besot with pangs of jealousy. I mean, I think I’ve lead an adventurous life: I’ve lived in Fiji and West Africa and Japan and I’ve paddled around the Cook Island of Rotuma on an outrigger canoe and wrestled a big African guy and built my own hut out of mud and sticks and lived in it and, well, done lots of interesting things.

But I look at this guy’s website and I realize I haven’t hiked Katahdin. In fact, I don’t even know what it is.