Just sharing my progress...
I'm still planning on staying with the folding bike. Having tested how my camping gear will fit, I'm going to need a bike trailer. About the only one versatile enough to work with mine is a bit pricy at around $300 -- Burley Travoy. My rear axle can't accommodate the ones that attach there. This is about the only way I'll be able to make this happen. I'm not doing a fundraiser (edit: not on the forum), but you can help if you like. (Yes, I know that, if I had a full-sized bicycle, I wouldn't need to go this route. One worth having would cost over $1K these days.)
I'll keep using my phone for pictures until I can save up for a better camera.
It looks like my first trip will be to Chandler, OK -- Bell Cow Lake has camping spaces on the south shore. When I'm about ready to roll, I'll double check with the city parks people about using a hammock. That will save a lot of weight. The more research I do, it seems the biggest challenge will be finding places I can camp here in Oklahoma. There are tons of RV sites, but precious few actual camping sites near reasonable stopping points on any route. Most RV places don't allow tent camping. The various mapping services are notorious for not listing more than maybe half the places that do exist. One of things I plan to do is develop a registry of places I can camp legally, and maybe stealth camping sites, as well. Oklahoma isn't very friendly about this right now.
There are a great many small towns where I may be able to camp in the local city park, if I can find a phone number to call. I'm really surprised at how many towns have no website at all. There is a site that attempts to keep track from a state level, but the information can be sorely out of date very quickly. If I start running into trouble, I may try to use the old church networking system, since churches tend to be very hungry for publicity and even small ones have some kind of contact information posted somewhere. Another trick is contacting the county sheriff's offices.
Whatever ends up working for me, I'll make sure that gets into the narratives I post. I'm still planning on using Substack simply because of the wider exposure. I'm also considering putting up another Facebook account for it, as that's still a thing in Oklahoma. Indeed, more public agencies have a FB account than have regular webpages. It may also be a way to discover camping sites on my routes. FYI, all of this will be resting on my OG ("original gangster") account on Google: jehurst@gmail.com. It's 20+ years old.
I'm still planning on staying with the folding bike. Having tested how my camping gear will fit, I'm going to need a bike trailer. About the only one versatile enough to work with mine is a bit pricy at around $300 -- Burley Travoy. My rear axle can't accommodate the ones that attach there. This is about the only way I'll be able to make this happen. I'm not doing a fundraiser (edit: not on the forum), but you can help if you like. (Yes, I know that, if I had a full-sized bicycle, I wouldn't need to go this route. One worth having would cost over $1K these days.)
I'll keep using my phone for pictures until I can save up for a better camera.
It looks like my first trip will be to Chandler, OK -- Bell Cow Lake has camping spaces on the south shore. When I'm about ready to roll, I'll double check with the city parks people about using a hammock. That will save a lot of weight. The more research I do, it seems the biggest challenge will be finding places I can camp here in Oklahoma. There are tons of RV sites, but precious few actual camping sites near reasonable stopping points on any route. Most RV places don't allow tent camping. The various mapping services are notorious for not listing more than maybe half the places that do exist. One of things I plan to do is develop a registry of places I can camp legally, and maybe stealth camping sites, as well. Oklahoma isn't very friendly about this right now.
There are a great many small towns where I may be able to camp in the local city park, if I can find a phone number to call. I'm really surprised at how many towns have no website at all. There is a site that attempts to keep track from a state level, but the information can be sorely out of date very quickly. If I start running into trouble, I may try to use the old church networking system, since churches tend to be very hungry for publicity and even small ones have some kind of contact information posted somewhere. Another trick is contacting the county sheriff's offices.
Whatever ends up working for me, I'll make sure that gets into the narratives I post. I'm still planning on using Substack simply because of the wider exposure. I'm also considering putting up another Facebook account for it, as that's still a thing in Oklahoma. Indeed, more public agencies have a FB account than have regular webpages. It may also be a way to discover camping sites on my routes. FYI, all of this will be resting on my OG ("original gangster") account on Google: jehurst@gmail.com. It's 20+ years old.
