Count de Monet, that is a very funny bit of schtick Comms.

D'Iberville was a real adventurer though. He really should be better known than he is. If he had not caught some tropical disease and died in Havana the USA might be speaking French today.

But back to the topic.
Ken's link to the Garmin manual is much appreciated.
So many good links and so much advice have been posted here that I am bookmarking this thread for later reference.
And I will be checking out the 60CSX because it seems to be getting good reviews by all of you.

Well thank goodness he went to Cuba then.

LOL, yes indeed.

I couldn't resist. My apologies to all for a bit of innocent fun.

I did a lot of research on the GPSMAP 60 series and though I did not go with that brand/model, I hold it in high regard.

I got the car-kit Garmin do, which also includes a dash-board mount - based around a sandbag, so it doesn't leave sucker marks on the windscreen (which can attract thieves).

However, in practice I run it on Eneloops. I keep some spares in the car, which are usually enough, and battery charger that will run from the ciggy lighter socket for multi-day trips. It saves having power chords in the driver's area. (My car has a cigarette lighter socket in the boot, which I guess shows they aren't really about smoking any more.)

Used it the past 4 days camping.
Very impressed!

However, navigating trails on the tiny screen requires a decent amount of 'stop time' to review the tiny little lines, then zoom out then back in, etc... that so far is my only complaint.

We used it to discover connecting trails, and make one HUGE loop when we were on our ATVs. I recorded the route, and plan to figure out how to save it to my PC and load it in Google Earth or something

You need a data cable:

http://www.aerostich.com/sale-items/electronics/pc-data-cable-60cx-60csx-v.html

That one is for a regular serial port. If you have only USB then you need a USB-to-serial converter, or a USB data cable (I haven't looked for one).

Next you need gpsbabel. It's free, and you don't need anything else.

http://www.gpsbabel.org/

gpsbabel will create a GPX file for you (or another format if you like). GPX can be loaded directly into Google Earth, or, for more pretty maps upload it here:

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com

Have fun!

A

Saweet thanks!

Kudos to you folks!

I bought my first Garmin handheld GPS since the early days of my Magellan. I had questions. Posted them on a Garmin GPS board couple weeks ago. No replies except from a MOD named Dav who was genuine in his suggestion to hang on....someone will reply.

I come here looking for something else and have been reading posts on Garmins for hours. You folks are the very best in the world!

Michael