This Might Not Have Been Such a Great Idea

Reporting to you today, day two of the Yellow Fish road trip, having stopped for the night in  Cloverdale, IN (about 20 miles west of Indianapolis).
Now, I've done some dumb things in my life. Really stupid stuff. Heck, you can ask anyone who's known me for the past 40 or so years, and I'd bet there would be a list longer than my arm. This trip, though, just might top the list. Think about it, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,200 miles in a 51 year old car of questionable heritage. A little 225 slant six engine screaming loudly, pushing modern highway speeds through a 3 speed transmission. The engine and road noise alone is enough to make you crazy! The car runs nicely, and is happy, between about 55 and 60 mph. Unfortunately, if you do that speed out here on I-70, you risk being flattened by a tractor trailer. So you push the little thing up to 65-70, and you realize you're really just asking for trouble. 'Specially when you see that you're putting a good amount of blue smoke out of the tailpipe. Yeah, she's burning oil at these speeds, which probably shouldn't surprise me. Not sure the engine's ever been worked beyond the valve job I had done last spring. My suspicion is that the piston rings have all the integrity of rubber bands, and oil's just pouring past them. Hopefully the plugs won't get too gunked up and the engine will keep going. Happy news, at least I'm getting decent mileage, it's averaging a touch over 20 mph, which, for this heavy car and small engine, is not bad.
Got the trip started on Sunday morning, and made it most of the way through PA before stopping for the night in Washington PA. Day one, just a little over 400 miles on the car, through some drizzle, mist, and occasional sunshine. Unfortunately, I stopped in a location where there was nothing to eat except 'the usual suspects', so dinner was a small Caesar salad and chili at Wendy's.
Today dawned very foggy and moist, with lots of condensation on the car windows. Of course, with that huge rear window on the Fish, that means lots of misting and fogging up of the glass.

 For those of you who may have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, these cars didn't have complex (or even efficient) air handling systems. No A/C in this car, certainly no controls like we have now, where you can mix heated and cooled air, direct it out of vents to clear the door windows, or bi-level vents, and certainly no auto temperature control. No, here's what we had to work with:

A simple two speed fan, with not much difference between 'low' and 'high'; two sliding levers, one directs the fan's output to either the floor vents, or onto the windshield; the second controls the temperature of the air, from ambient to warm. Knowing how this system struggles with de-fogging things, I held off getting on the road until the fog at least started to lift. Once I got on the road, things cleared up pretty well, and it was a good day to drive, with some high clouds keeping the sun, and the temperature, down a bit. The back window of this car acts like some sort of convection oven, when it gets even moderately sunny, the interior of the car gets extremely hot. Fortunately, that didn't happen today. I-70 through PA and OH isn't a bad ride. Lots of the road has 3 lanes, so I was able to stick to the right lane and not impede traffic. It's fairly level as well, which helps the gas mileage. Crossing into West VA, there are some pretty steep grades, 5 - 7%, and the little car struggled trying to hold speed going uphill, but did okay. Kept rolling along, and made my goal of getting to at least Indianapolis before the day ended. As it turns out, I got about 20 miles past Indy, and that leaves me about 211 miles to go to reach St. Louis. If all goes well, it's less than 4 hours there, so tomorrow will be the 'easy' day of the trip.
Settled in to the motel, and looked around for dinner. Didn't see a lot of choices, so I asked the desk clerk. He didn't hesitate, and said 'the little Mexican place two doors down is the best restaurant in town'. Of course, the others are Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway, and a scary looking place called "Chicago's Pizza". So, taking him at his word, off I went to 

Cantarito's Mexican Grill. Huge menu, six full pages, with literally dozens of combinations, a la carte, and 'especiales'. Chips and salsa arrived, and I ordered a Negra Modelo to start the meal.

The Modela, as expected, good. The chips, nice texture, a little thicker than a lot of places, but sadly, lacking in taste. Someone needs to take a step closer to the salt shaker when they're making these things, because as served, they're like crunchy pieces of cardboard. Salsa was good and thick, chunks of tomato and onion, Cilantro (yuk), but no discernible heat. Easily fixed, a couple of shakes from the hot sauce on the table gave it a good zing. Overall, better than you'd expect.
Tough choice for dinner, I was tempted by the Arroz Con Pollo, but it was sauteed with not just the usual onions and peppers, it also had mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini. Not a fan of mushrooms, love broccoli but it really seemed out of place here, and zucchini, well the world would be a better place without that junk in it.
So I ordered the Pollo Loco.

Two thin chicken breasts, seasoned and grilled, topped with queso sauce. Served with 'salad' (a couple of tablespoons of chopped lettuce and tomato and sour cream', refried beans, and Mexican rice. The chicken was good; nicely seasoned, perfectly cooked, not dry. The melted cheese sauce was a little thin, but had nice flavor. The rice was, as in most places, just okay; could have used a little seasoning. The refried beans were a little disappointing, they were pretty much like canned ones, but they had a slightly deeper flavor, as if they'd been cooked a minute or two longer than they needed to be. Overall, a pretty good meal, a nice change from the chain places, and at a cost of $15, reasonable.
Back to the hotel to finish up this post, then a nice quiet night. I'm going to hit a local 'you spray it' car wash in the morning before I get on the road. Might as well scrape some of the road dirt off the car before cruising into St. Louis.