southern Kansas, Ok, & NM

If you want to stay south of Wichita across KS then 160 is the only more or less road across there. I have not gone across the state on 160 but the parts I have been on are decent two lane roads. You could take Alt. 69 west of Joplin, north to catch 160. That would take you across to Meade where you could catch 54 down to Guymon, OK and on into Tucumcari, NM. However the last time we were on 54 for that drive, we found the stretch across OK and part way into to TX to be really poor. We prefer to take 56 into Clayton, NM and then over to I25. To get to 56 you would have to take KS 51 into Hugoton. I have no idea what shape KS 51 is in but even the state roads in western KS are usually in decent shape because they don't have much traffic.