On the road to Tucumcari NM

Rain, Rain and more rain! It wasn't a hard pour. just a persistent weeping of the skies! We continued west on Highway 9 and when we crossed the Texas state line, it became 203. We followed 203 to Headly and picked up highway 297.
The two laned Highway 9/203 were hilly, windy and rainy, but so beautiful, just a good slice of back country! The roads were in excellent condition and very lightly traveled! When we arrived at Headly Highway 297 was a great 4-laned road also in excellent condition and very little traffic! Highway 297 took us right into Amarillo I-40 West with ease! 4 hours of driving so far, skies just banked with clouds each row a deeper gray than the first..... but always was that last row of clouds teasing us with what looked like the sun must just be behind that row of clouds! Our goal was Tucumcari NM for the night. Buffeting winds, constant rain made driving miserable! Low gas mileage too! To say nothing of more expensive gas! Arkansas and Oklahoma it was always under $3 per gallon, got the cheapest at Exxon $2.67 a gallon! Now we noticed Texans were back up over the $3 a gallon mark! New Mexico seems to waver around the $3 mark so far. We finally pulled into Tucumcari about dusk..... hard to tell since the whole day had been gray....!
We went to a KOA there, as you exit I-40 you go left under the overpass and turn left and it's right there. NEW OWNERS! This used to be a dump of a park with very poor ratings! The new owners came in last year and totally revamped back bathroom and showers and repainted the front ones! Nice folks too! Just a pain to have to set up in the pouring rain and by this time the temps had dropped from mid-70's when we left Quartz Mountain to mid-40's and a wind chill to the 30's.......brrrrrr. Before we pulled into the campground, we road through Tucumcari... sad to see a town once so vital on route 66 looking so run down, but we found a great restaurant called Del's Restaurant. Great food, good friendly service! So we got to the camp, set up, settled in and slept well! Woke up to more rain!