Where's Harvey the RV?

I've been holding out on doing the last update on our trip for a long time now... I guess because I didn't want that closure or maybe because I didn't want to have to explain to anyone why we had decided to cut our trip short or seem like we came back with our tail between our legs. However, I think everyone that is important to us knows by now that we found out that we are expecting a baby girl in July! We made this discovery halfway through our stay at Enchanted Trails RV Park in Albuquerque and made a panicked decision to go back to Owensboro so that Trae could go back to work.
However, I will save that for a little later and pick up where I left off in the little SHARP town of Van Horn, Texas. I say sharp because everything there was pointy and stuck in your shoes. I made the comment to Trae that I really understood why everyone was wearing bootcut jeans and cowboy boots. It's not just a fashion statement. It's to protect the "goatheads" and weeds from stabbing your legs!

Anyway, this is Trae driving Harvey in between El Paso and Albuquerque, New Mexico which was our new destination. We attempted to stop in El Paso and explore a little bit but decided against it after attempting to drive to the top of a mountain and getting kind of stuck. Harvey did not like the idea of going up mountains and got really hot. I think he was trying to tell us that he was a little to old for that kind of nonsense.

A mountain in between El Paso and Albuquerque.

We stayed the night in a parking lot after driving into the night for a couple hours. When we woke up we were in awe of the colors we saw in New Mexico. The sky was the bluest I've seen, the mountains looked violet and the brush was the brightest yellows and oranges. It is just BEAUTIFUL there! Very welcoming after spending time in West Texas.

I apparently didn't take any photos of the RV park, but we ended up prepaying for a week stay at Enchanted Trails RV Park. I highly recommend this place. It is very nostalgic with old restored motorhomes and pull-behinds parked among new rigs which I LOVED! Old RVs are my favorite. They were totally okay with us having two pitbulls with us, which after being turned away by High Desert RV Park because of them was nice!

Downtown Albuquerque

We're definitely not in Kentucky anymore! Closer to Los Angeles than Chicago for once!

This guy asked us for weed. Sorry guy, don't have any. I wonder how often he actually scores some by randomly asking people on the streets? I am not so great at disguising the fact that I am uncomfortable, ha.

Our server at a restaurant that we stopped at for lunch suggested that we go watch the Dia de Los Muertos parade, which was very cool! Trae took these photos of the parade. It was such a spirited event! We definitely hadn't seen anything like it before back home.

We had the pleasure of meeting some of Trae's family that he hadn't met before while in Albuquerque! Amy, Drew, and Reise were very hospitable and fun to be around while in Albuquerque! They treated us to some GREAT New Mexican food early on in our stay and made some suggestions for things for us to do. This is where Trae discovered his love of Green Chile which is a staple in New Mexico apparently. It is pretty good! Anyway, somewhere in the conversation the off-the-grid artist town of Madrid came into conversation. We were told it was on the Turquoise trail in between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and was a weird little recovered ghost town with lots of shops and people living sustainably in a commune-like fashion. I wanted to see it! So the next day we packed up the car to go hiking in Santa Fe and stopped in Madrid along the way. It was a cool little place!

Nyx and I taking photos at a little donation-based Photo Garden with setups to take pictures in. Pretty cute!

Trae, Paco and Wyatt. The boys!

Madrid, New Mexico

Colorful mailboxes

Houses in Madrid. So beautiful!

The Neon posing with the New Mexican horizon on the Turquoise Trail

The following photos were taken on the Atalaya Mountain Trail in Santa Fe. It is a 4 mile round trip (uphill then downhill) starting at St. John's college. It was pretty awesome at the top!

Trae enjoying his Enu Hammock. Best wedding gifts ever!

I needed a break!

We beat a storm coming down from the trail! Apparently we brought the rain with us to New Mexico!

The next day we joined Drew, Amy, and Reise on a hike. We went to a really neat spot alongside an Indian reservation. This was the first time that I'd seen water in a while! Trae and I joked about how the "Rivers" that were labeled on our atlas weren't really there when we drove over them. Most were dried up and looked like ditches.

The colors! So amazing.

White Mesa in San Ysirdo. Breathtaking.

Reise, Me, Trae, and Amy. Drew took the photo. Thanks again guys for showing us an amazing time!

That's all that I have for now. We found out about the baby coming and made the decision to join in the real world again for now.

There have been a LOT of changes in a short period of time since we had to return home. Since we sold pretty much everything we had in exchange for living in Harvey we made the decision to trade him off for a vehicle so that Trae could get around again. This is Trae's new baby:

I am happy that he finally got the vehicle that he wanted for the longest time! We can't wait to go offroading once the weather is nicer.

We also lost Nyx in an accident. It breaks my heart every day to see her go, as she has been everywhere with us in the last 3 years and has shown such unconditional love and a crazy passion for being athletic and exploring with us. We miss you so much!

Anyway, we hope sometime in the near future to get a pull-behind and make more trips that we can document here. Until then, we will just have to check back here and remember how we did something that most people would consider crazy but learned a lot and grew a lot closer in the process. Until Next time, friends!

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!