It's starting to feel a bit like the movie Ground Hog Day. We wake up in the morning in the same Walmart parking lot. After just about killing VanGo's batteries last night, he started up easily at 8am and didn't immediately start to overheat. We had our route all planned out and places were we could pull over if he started to overheat but there was none of that. In fact, instead of driving directly to the shop, we drove around the neighbourhood that shop was in, just to see if we could see any signs of overheating. No such luck.
So we went to the shop and they took him right in. We set up our laptops in the waiting room and it had a power outlet! We could recharge all of those devices that we had discharged yesterday and get some work done.
After a couple of hours of them looking at VanGo, asking us questions and then going and looking again, the only thing that they found with any fault was the water pump. It wasn't completely broken but was extremely worn. So they ordered a new one and will install it tomorrow morning. So if you are keeping count, that will be another night in the Walmart parking lot.
VanGo has shown two other problems, one is that the temperature gauge goes off the deep end sometimes when it is not possible for it have overheated. The second is that it occasionally does not start. They were not able to replicate those problems so we are left hoping that these things do not come up again or at least not very often.
We left VanGo with the shop to try to see if they could replicate these other problems at other points in the day. We took our bicycles and rode over to the outdoor pool for a swim and a shower. The place was full of kids so we didn't stay long. We set up our office in a local Taco Bell for the afternoon and then picked up VanGo in the late afternoon. We took him for a drive around town to see if we could trigger anything but no problems surfaced. We are now at Walmart again. We could have been staying at an RV park outside of town but the Walmart is close enough to the shop that we could get it there even if VanGo overheats.
It would seem that you can ride a motorcycle in North Dakota without a helmet. At least, I have yet to see a helmet on a rider.