This park and the towns leading up to it have been, quite possibly, the most difficult bit of work I’ve done in a long time, in preparation and collaboration with the Missouri Exotic Species Arts Association (MESA) to help get survey from the major points, and with public data (under the Oklahoma Records Act or already published on the state’s GIS systems) from Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Department of Transportation, Oklahoma Department of Recreation and Tourism, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, and good ole US Census TIGER. This was done in an effort for MESA to help give back to the community after hosting Wild Nights, an outdoor furry convention hosted at that park every April, and to help attendees find their way into the convention and find amenities once on site. There’s wide space coverage of speed limits and traffic control for, at a minimum, a few dozen miles around.

Personal surveys also included finding as many amenities attendees might need during their weeklong stay as daylight, gasoline and the sanity of my boyfriend would allow in the towns of Stigler, Quinton, Wilburton, and at least one more I can’t remember offhand, across two different on-the-ground surveys comprising over 500 miles, and two previous, less intensive surveys from previous attendance (before we decided as a group we needed better maps than the state highway map and a badly xeroxed state park map the rangers hand out to work with last year).