Day 2: Friday, May 12th- St. Charles, Missouri to Lawton, Oklahoma-603 miles

After enjoying a delicious complimentary breakfast, we pushed off for Lawton, Oklahoma at 8am. It was another boring ride...not much to note except for 3 dead armadillo sightings...the kids were not impressed! When seeing the signs for Joplin, Missouri, we did decide to take a short detour to find a Walmart for our lunch stop.Almost one year since the horrific tornado ripped through that town, there is still such devastation...very sobering and sad.

It's strange to see some structures safe and sound and then others completely obliterated from the fury of the storm.

Still boarded up almost one year later~

After another long day of driving, we arrived at the Homewood Suites and it was luxurious! Thanks to Hotel.com we scored an awesome deal...this was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom suite with a small kitchenette... so I was able to prepare dinner for the gang while they played on the basketball court....

They met a new friend on the court.....after basketball, we all relaxed and had a great sleep in the oh so comfy beds!

This breakfast was even more amazing than the day before...

Odesco even created his own concoction....

We told the kids that our next 2 nites' stay would definitely be a notch down as we could not find such great deals closer to the Grand Canyon...after just one nite', we definitely got spoiled!

We hit the road by 8:20am for another LONG day in the car!! This day though we drove through 1 time zone so we actually 'gained ' 2 hours!