Where's Harvey the RV?: First week as full-timers

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in updates, as it is a little more difficult to access wifi than I thought it would be. Currently we are parked at a little RV park in Van Horn, Texas called Desert Oasis doing some laundry and accessing some much needed internet access. (Talk about first world problems...)
Anyway, as most of you know, Harvey and our crew set out last Monday (October 21st). We packed up most of our things and set out with the intentions of heading in the direction of Colorado Springs, which is about a 17 hour drive from where we departed from in Owensboro, KY. 17 hours if you go the speed limit, anyway. We ride Harvey at 55 mph going down the interstates to maximize our miles per gallon that we get out of the big guy.
The first night we stopped somewhere in southern Missouri around dark and boondocked in a Wal Mart parking lot. It's pretty cool that the stores allow RVs and trucks to park in the back of the lots and sleep until morning. This definitely is going to save us a lot of money on fees for RV parks and campsites... plus the grocery store is just a short walk away if we think of something we need!
The next morning we departed again, but while driving right outside of St. Louis Trae noticed Harvey making some funky noises while driving. We started searching for RV mechanics to check him out, but either the places were all booked up for the next few days or their garages were too short to pull Harvey into. Finally I was able to get ahold of Mike Ross who instructed us to meet him at a gas station in O'Fallon, Missouri so that he could take a look at Harvey's engine.

Mike's old flatbed truck that he arrived in instantly made friends with Harvey. "It's okay, friend" he says, "We will get you all fixed up."

Unfortunately, Mike informed us that there was a lot more going on with Harvey than just a little bit of carburetor trouble like we had originally thought. He ended up directing us to Don's Auto Service in nearby St. Charles. We bought Harvey there to the owner named Kevin, who informed us that old Harvey needed quite a bit of engine work. (We could have gotten him inspected before we left, I suppose, but what is the fun in that?) We got a room at the Red Roof for the night but learned the next morning that because of the difficulty in finding some of the old parts that weren't being made anymore and the amount of TLC that Harvey needed, we were more than likely going to be there a while. Kevin was nice enough to allow us to hook up to his electric so that we could camp out outside of his shop while he worked on Harvey. (Thanks again, Kevin and Mike!)

We went to go grab coffee in St. Louis one afternoon while waiting on Harvey at Urban Eats. It was a cute little place. It was nice to get back into a bigger city for a while.

Hanging out in the parking lot!

Old cars and patina, my favorite!

Hahaha! I love this! Wyatt is such a nerd.

Finally when we were all fixed up and ready to go on Friday afternoon we had decided that it was too cold and that we wanted to avoid winter instead of battling the Colorado temperatures. We were heading toward Texas!

After getting lost on back roads in Oklahoma and stopping at a little RV park there to do laundry and get a shower, we drove into the Dallas, Texas area in a lightening storm. When they say that everything is bigger in Texas, they're not joking! The lightening stretched all the way across the sky! We stopped in a parking lot in McKinney and decided to call it an early night rather than battling a flash flood.

Finally we arrived in Austin, Texas the next day! We paid for two nights to park Harvey at a campsite at Emma Long Metropolitan Park then headed to the city to catch the end of the National Pitbull Awareness Day festival hosted by Love-A-Bull. The pups had fun and met some friends. We walked them around the city to burn off some energy that they'd been stockpiling the last few days locked up in the car.

West Austin Neighborhood Park & Wading Pool has a nice little dog park.

The next images were taken at the off-leash hiking trail located inside Emma Long Park. The dogs had a BLAST running through the trails and playing in Turkey Creek which runs through the park!

After leaving Austin we started heading west toward New Mexico. We are on our way to Linclon National Forest to hike and camp. It seems that the National Parks aren't really dog-friendly as far as the hiking trails go so we are sticking to National Forests and State Parks!