Early Morning Start = Great Travel Day

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This morning at 12:30 a.m. we were woken be strong winds blowing our tent so hard that we couldn't sleep any longer.  We decided to pack everything up and hit the road.  We left New Mexico at 1:30 a.m. headed for our final  destination of Joplin, Missouri.   At first we felt, fine, but as the early  morning hours drug on, it seemed like the sun would never come up, but it did, and we pulled in to a truck stop and took a little cat nap at 6:30 a.m.  We thought we were still in Texas, but  when we went inside the truck stop we soon discovered that we had driven all the way to Oklahoma without realizing it.  Well, I'm not quite sure what Texas really looks like, because I only saw it in its pitch black form.  One thing that struck me though was how beautiful the moon was this morning.  It was a perfect sliver. After leaving the truck stop, our next stop was at a Cherokee trading post where we saw some Texas longhorns and some Oklahoma Buffalo.  We continued on through Oklahoma and stopped to eat at a Burger King where we just had to try their new bacon sundae.  It was very interesting, but I don't think that we will be ordering it again.  We arrived in Joplin, Missouri, at about 2:30  after traveling 577 miles from New Mexico to Missouri.  We had a great trip with no mishaps.  Once we arrived at our camp site and set up we decided to go and see the damage from last year's tornado that came through Joplin.  It was so sad to see so many empty lots where the tornado had torn buildings from their foundations.  Still, it was good to see much rebuilding taking place as well.  Right now we are pretty tired and we're back at our campsite.  We will probably fall asleep pretty early tonight, and then it's up again at 3:00 a.m. to head for Louisville, Kentucky our final destination.  Thank you so much to all of you have been praying that we will have a safe journey, your prayers have been greatly appreciated.