The Iron Man event takes place today. In fact it’s 7am as I write and the competitors are already in the water for the 2.4 mile swim. But I’ll write about that tomorrow, this morning I need to catch up on the last couple of days.

Friday morning Gene and I went out in his boat on Lake Placid intending to do a little fishing. As we cruised across the lake, Gene filled me in on a little of the history and the layout of the lake. Suddenly the outboard engine started making unusual noises and lost power. We turned around to limp back to the boat launch, but soon the engine quit running.

It seemed like a fuel delivery problem to me and I began to investigate. After a while another boater saw that we were powerless and offered a tow which we gladly accepted. While we were being towed, I continued to look for the problem and found a pinhole in the fuel line under the cowl. The pinhole was allowing the fuel pump to draw air, so the engine ran lean and then quit.

The good news is that I saw some of the lake and the issue with engine is an easy fix, but our tour was cut short and we didn’t get a chance to fish.

Donna and I went into the village and it was really hopping. Sidewalks filled with people, streets filled with cars, bicycles, runners and scooter (yes, we had the only scooter that we saw in town). There was a large vendor area with a platform the could raise and lower. Under the platform was a large inflatable cushion. Kids were lined up for the opportunity to jump from the platform and land in the cushion! No thank you.

The Platform

Jump!

Friday night we were invited to dinner at Wendy and Ian Poole’s house. Donna’s old friends, Karen and Diane, were also invited along with their husbands, Bernie and Patrick. We had cocktails, good conversation and good food. It was a great dinner party. Our contribution to the dinner was a bottle of wine – “Triple Overtime” from Igor Larionov’s winery, signed by the man himself.

Bernie and Karen drove us home but first we stopped at their place for a nightcap and tour of their house. It’s a beautiful place that Bernie built.

Yesterday I had good news from Detroit BMW. They sold my R1200RT motorcycle! Tomorrow I’ll sign off the title and send to them via FedEx overnight.

Wendy and Ian invited us to go boating on Saranac Lake. The village of Saranac Lake is about seven miles from Lake Placid and is slightly larger with about 6,000 residents. The lake itself is actually comprised of three lakes – Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac Lake. We were on Lower Saranac Lake. About half of the shoreline of this lake is public property. The islands are also state land and have reservable camp sites on them.

Cove on Lower Saranac Lake

We had lunch on the boat anchored in  a small cove. Wendy made some delicious wraps. We talked and enjoyed the scenery and each other’s company and then took a short swim to cool off. It was a very pleasant way to spend a beautiful day.

Delicious lunch on Ian’s boat

Last evening Allen Hutchinson, his wife Crystal and their three daughters joined us for dinner. I grilled jerk chicken with mango salsa (which Donna prepared). We also had a green bean and fennel salad and brown rice. We spent a couple of hours at the picnic table eating and talking. They’re a lovely family.

Donna and the Hutchinson family

I hope Allen is doing well in the swim right now. It’s raining, 62 degrees and cloudy. The rain shouldn’t affect his swim but I hope it stops before he begins the ride. He expected to complete the 2.4 mile swim in ~70 minutes so he’ll be transitioning to the bike soon. We’ll go watch the bike portion.

That’s what we’ve been up to. Tomorrow we’ll move to Lake George to camp alongside Donna’s sister Linda and her husband Tommy.