Columbia River Travels

Astoria, OR – Crossing the Columbia

 

 

Woodland, OR – Watching the Boats

 

 

Boardman, OR – Camping @ Boardman Marina & RV Park

 

 

 

 

 

Fixing Things: Bathroom Fan

en-tro-py

noun

1. a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.
2. lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.

Never a truer word spoken. In this case, our RV’s electric bathroom fan declined into not working.

 

 

 

So break out the ladder and tools and up to the roof we go . . .

 

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Campground WiFi Speed Record

I’ve never seen these kinds of WiFi download speeds in a RV campground . . . so I measured twice . . .

 

Fixing Things: UV Filter

We filter the bejeezus out of our water (see Water Filtration System). I think it’s because we were living in Milwaukee, WI during the 1993 cryptosporidium outbreak, the largest documented waterborne disease outbreak in US history.

Our UV (Ultra Violet) filter is a key part of our RV’s water purification setup. Not only does our UV filter disinfect water, it also stops water system algae outbreaks (see The Green Stuff under Fixin’ Stuff).

 

The “heart” of a UV filter is the UV light itself. The ultraviolet radiation from a UV light effectively sterilizes water.

However, since the UV bulb gradually dims over time, it must be replaced. In our case that’s once a year. Our Sterilight UV system has a Controller that notifies us when the UV light is failing by flashing “A3”.

So when our Controller started flashing “A3” recently, I replaced the UV bulb and the glass sleeve that surrounds the bulb. Easy peasy, right?

Not this time.

This time our Controller kept flashing “A3” and other error codes. Bad mojo.

I knew what this meant — the Controller had gone south. Since we first installed our UV system, the Controller had failed once before about 3 years ago.

Because a new Controller costs over $300, replacing it was not high on my list of things to buy.

 

So I played a hunch.

What if the Controller was still sending power to the UV light? However, since the UV light is sealed up, how could I tell if it’s working?

 

 

Because we weren’t running water, a functioning UV bulb will warm up its enclosure. So I just “laid hands” on the enclosure — it was warm. Pretty complex test methodology, eh?

I’ll be saving some money for a while and just keep feeling up our UV tank.

 

 

Roseanna’s Cafe in Oceanside

 

Fred and Marian, a couple we met six years ago at Crazy Horse Campground, paid us a visit at our Netarts campground. The couple live in Salem, OR. They were both born in Liverpool, England and emigrated to the US about 40 years ago.

We all had a late lunch at Roseanna’s Cafe which we picked out of a Yelp list. It was a great pick.

 

Some photos from the nearby beach . . .