The author slogs through Britain's wettest summer in centuries

During my recent water-logged but highly entertaining trip to the UK, where I spoke at the Glade music festival, played psych-rock guitar with Ragnagrok, and biked across London to visit William Blake's lucky-penny-strewn grave, I decided to spend a few days hiking and camping by myself in Dartmoor, which lies in the southwestern county of Devon. This lonely land of peat-bog and tors— hilltops generally crowned with enchanting piles of granite outcrop, like Pictish building blocks—is about the closest thing...