Hi Bret,

>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.

We didn't get far enough south to get to the Wichita Mtn NWR but I'm getting the family psyched for a longer vacation to the southwest in a couple of years and I'm adding this to my list. But then we'll go in the very late spring. It was hot driving from Okla. City to Amarillo.

>
>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.

This is probably "Lake Meredith NRA" which is another one we didn't get to since we were spending time in the Palo Duro Canyon - quite a spectacular sight.

>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.

Couldn't find this on my maps...

>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.

We did stop in Tucumcari but everyone was getting antsy to get to Santa Fe by this time and the vote to stay on I-40 until we got closer overwhelmed my single vote. We got to Clines Corner and took the state road up to I-25 from there. This was still spectacular to me. All of NM that we saw was spectacular. I've been telling my friends that I'd move out there in a New York Minute.

Thanks again for your earlier reply.


-Gil Munk