First of all, let me give a big hearty thanks to the list.  On the return for our Mt. Rushmore trip last weekend, our van failed to start in the parking lot of Cabela's in Mitchell, S.D.  Luckily I remembered the discussions about the starter solenoid sticking.  Based on the symptoms our van was exhibiting, I was pretty sure this was the case.  I tapped the solenoid  a few times and, sure enough, it fired right up.  Were it not for the collective wisdom of the list, I might still be stuck in that parking lot.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Now for the second item,  Thursday night, on our way to The Black Hills we got caught in a terrible thundershower between Sioux City, IA and Sioux Falls, SD.  The engine got wet enough that I had to constantly restart the van to keep it running.  When I finally made it to a town I opened the engine compartment and everything looked dry.  I assume something on the bottom of the engine was getting wet enough to cause the electrical problems I was experiencing.  My question is where should I start checking to prevent this problem in the future?  Once everything dried out, it ran great, but I'd like to not have to cower in fear anytime rain is threatening.  What would be some good keywords to search the archives with???  I'd like to try and have it fixed before we take it on RAGBRAI.

And the last item.  Our trip started out rather uneventfully...vanagon-wise.  It wasn't until we saw an EVC on Friday morning the we finally made VW contact.  We had a blue westy, similar to ours, pull into the Rapid City KOA campground, where we stayed, on Saturday night.  Could either of these been list members???  We spotted several other EVC's on the way home.  Strangely enough, they were all white????  We also encountered a brown, two-tone Westy with 2 kayaks on top around the Dexter/Stuart area along I80 in Iowa.  Were any of these listees???  Were any listees in the Rapid City or I90 area over the 4th of July weekend???  We waved at everyone we saw.  Let us know if it was one of you.

Thanks again!!!!

Rod & Laura Woten
'87 Westy
Des Moines, Iowa