>I'm driving the family to Santa Fe from Maryland. Anyone have any 'must see' spots in Oklahoma or the Texas panhandle?
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Wichita Mountain National Wildlife Refuge is not too far from I-40. It has buffalo, elk, feral longhorn cattle, and a campground (unusual for NWRs). If you use the campground, watch out for thieving raccoons. You'll be sharing the buffalo with far fewer tourists than at a place like Yellowstone.

The morning we camped there, a small heard of buffalo crossed the campground on their way to the lake, passing through the campsite next to ours. I wonder if they would go around a tent or through it.

You'll see a National Recreation Area on the map in the Texas panhandle. I forget the name and I haven't been there but I heard it was beautiful.

There is a National Wildlife Refuge in the Texas panhandle whose name I forget, that has a campground. I think it's nice to see what the prairie looks like when it isn't covered with wheat or grazed by cattle. It has wild turkeys and quail.

A lot of people prefer to hyperspace across the prairie on their way to the mountains and canyons of the West. Many of these people aren't interested in much and would be bored almost anywhere. This region can be interesting to birdwatchers and history enthusiasts. The former have more to see in Kansas and Nebraska, mainly in spring and fall. Refuges in Oklahoma and Texas have gamebirds not seen as often in the East or the mountains. The latter can probably visit old forts that figured in Indian wars, but I don't know where they are along I-40.

If you take one of the state roads from I-40 around Tucumcari to I-25 around Las Vegas NM, you climb steeply and dramatically up onto the plateau on which Santa Fe sits. Driving that road eastbound is like driving off the edge of the earth. It might be NM-104 but I'm not sure.