Fall Foliage Trip and Shower adust.
Oct. 15th, 2022 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillSo the trees are turning colors locally, not all of them yet, but the early harbingers. Kip had a day off work on Tuesday for Fall Break (technically it was Monday and Tuesday both but of course he had so much prep work to do for his courses that he ended up working Monday.) I combined these two things and decided we should drive out to Cherohala Skyway to look at the fall foliage in the hills of Cherokee National Forest and Nantahala National Forest, and that's what we did.
Just getting there was scenic, because we ended up driving out a road the locals call the dragon's tail for the number of times it turns, which is a favorite of the local motorcyclists. They were driving up and down the road in packs, and I don't mind because they have as much right to the road as anyone else, and there were photographers at half the pull-outs, taking pictures of motorcyclists in dynamic poses as they were canted over for the turns, with the autumn leaves flying about them. I suspect there are photographers that make half their year's income this way.
The road was very windy, but many of the trees that bordered it were changing, so it was pretty and autumnal all the way. The lower reaches of the Cherohala Skyway were dotted with red and orange and gold trees; in the higher elevations they had mostly turned brown. Different rich colors of brown, but brown, perhaps because it had frozen up that high a few times? I don't know.
Anyway, it was a pretty drive and it took us five or six hours, but was worth it.
In other news the shower the contractors put in when they re-did the bathroom was too cool. In summer this was not a big problem, but it is not summer anymore, and Kip in particular was finding it a problem since he has to get up and shower in the black dark and cold. It seemed likely to me that this was a fault of some kind of valve that was mixing the hot and cold water (it's one of those one-tap showers) and I suspected there was probably a doohickey inside that needed to be adjusted, but the contractors ghosted me on that, and I couldn't find a plumber who would return my calls, so I finally went online and googled the innards of Delta showers and sure enough I was right (it's called a limiter, and it is adjustable), and there was a little set screw I could take out to take the tap off. So I did that, and reached in there and adjusted the limiter up just about as high as it would go, since our hot water heater isn't set very high. And put the tap back on, and warned Kip twice that I had done that and to be careful with the shower this morning. This afternoon when he came home he gave me a big hug and said the shower was now magnificent so I think he has approved the change.
Just getting there was scenic, because we ended up driving out a road the locals call the dragon's tail for the number of times it turns, which is a favorite of the local motorcyclists. They were driving up and down the road in packs, and I don't mind because they have as much right to the road as anyone else, and there were photographers at half the pull-outs, taking pictures of motorcyclists in dynamic poses as they were canted over for the turns, with the autumn leaves flying about them. I suspect there are photographers that make half their year's income this way.
The road was very windy, but many of the trees that bordered it were changing, so it was pretty and autumnal all the way. The lower reaches of the Cherohala Skyway were dotted with red and orange and gold trees; in the higher elevations they had mostly turned brown. Different rich colors of brown, but brown, perhaps because it had frozen up that high a few times? I don't know.
Anyway, it was a pretty drive and it took us five or six hours, but was worth it.
In other news the shower the contractors put in when they re-did the bathroom was too cool. In summer this was not a big problem, but it is not summer anymore, and Kip in particular was finding it a problem since he has to get up and shower in the black dark and cold. It seemed likely to me that this was a fault of some kind of valve that was mixing the hot and cold water (it's one of those one-tap showers) and I suspected there was probably a doohickey inside that needed to be adjusted, but the contractors ghosted me on that, and I couldn't find a plumber who would return my calls, so I finally went online and googled the innards of Delta showers and sure enough I was right (it's called a limiter, and it is adjustable), and there was a little set screw I could take out to take the tap off. So I did that, and reached in there and adjusted the limiter up just about as high as it would go, since our hot water heater isn't set very high. And put the tap back on, and warned Kip twice that I had done that and to be careful with the shower this morning. This afternoon when he came home he gave me a big hug and said the shower was now magnificent so I think he has approved the change.
