Air boat...AIR BOAT!!

Although I currently reside in the South, I am by birth what most here would classify as a Northerner (aka "damn Yankee" if you are some random southern not-such-a-gentleman on the elevator...). Of course, we Ohioans classify ourselves as Midwestern, but I've been scolded by people from Kansas on that designation, so we'll leave that discussion for another day.

Growing up near a lake, a Great Lake in fact, I spent many of my formative years on different types of nautical vessels - sailboats, power boats, row boats, a random jet ski. Yet the one thing I have never experienced first hand is an air boat. There are no swamps in Cleveland, so no air boats. These crazy contraptions remain just a romantic yet intriguing figment of my imagination, represented only by Hollywood images of sleepy swamps where moss hangs from trees, a festive jug band accompanies dinner, and a crocodile or other crazy psychopath may or may not be hiding just out of sight...

(I need to stop watching horror movies)

Despite all the other pressing issues to ponder - global warming, writing my dissertation, what to eat for dinner - I still found myself haunted by air boat questions. Can you really power a vessel by a giant fan? Do these things even exist?

I finally got my answer with my first real-life sighting of an air boat. Really!!

My excitement, however, probably should have been tempered by WHERE I saw this airboat:

<