A milestone, and a list of caches.

I actually managed to reach my 200th cache earlier than predicted!  I was able to get to 199 on Monday, and picked up #200 - Support Your Local Parks on the way in to work yesterday.  I also managed to take a late lunch and pick up a few more, bringing me up to 203.  Since I'm running out of quick local hides I'm less able to just spontaneously get out there and cache, and actually have to plan things a bit.  There are quite a few hides past Wayne, near Devon and Tredyffrin, which are right on the edge of what's practical, so that's my current go-to area.

I'm also keeping a bookmark list of caches that I have found with some sort of local historical interest.  For example, one cache I've picked up is at the site of a fireworks factory that exploded back in 1930,  There are several caches in Ithan Valley Park, which is what remains of an old estate and mill from the 19th century.  You get the idea.

I'm just keeping this as a regular old Geocaching list, so you can check it out here.

A very busy, very rainy, caching day.

I'm finally back in the swing of things.  Since my return to caching a little more than a week ago I've managed to pick up 15 more caches, bringing my total up to 194.  Getting close to 200 is getting me more focused than ever on picking some more up on my lunch breaks this week, so hopefully I'll have a "reached a milestone!" post pretty soon.

Saturday was my best caching day in months (actually my second best caching day ever) with 10 finds.  The weather pretty much sucked, with non-stop heavy drizzle and temperatures in the mid 40s °F, though that didn't deter me from spending about 4 hours out picking up hides.  Caching in the rain does have the advantage of keeping most non-cachers indoors, so stealth is much less of an issue.

Jack had a date today (Seriously.  He's 7 years old and has had a steady girlfriend for years) so while Emily and Jack were out with his girlfriend and her mother, I took the opportunity to get out and cache.  A few new local ones had popped up during my hiatus, so I spent about an hour picking up my first three from this area. I also managed to get a previous DNF that I struggled with way back in September.

Once those were in the bag I headed up closer to work in order to find Ben's Mark. I had actually tried to pick this up some months back, but it's in a parking lot at a train station and during the work week it's pretty much impossible to park here.  As I don't get a lot of time to cache on lunch break, I didn't want to park and walk, so I just left it alone.

One of the reasons that I wanted this hide was because it's located right next to a benchmark, of which I had officially already found three.  With an open parking lot today I was able to get benchmark number four as well as cache number 5.

The cache is located within a few feet of the benchmark, so it's a two for one deal of sorts.

I picked up one more right after this one, and then spent about 15 minutes in the rain trying (and failing) to find Play Ball #2.  I'll have to come back here with Jack someday soon, as he has a different point of view than I do (literally - he's pretty short) and there is a nice playground within 15 feet of GZ, so he'll be more than willing to help out.

The Garmin showed a few hides pretty close by, so I decided to check out the ones at the Cynwyd Heritage Trail.  I had seen a series of caches named CHT on the Geocaching site before, but did not actually know there was a trail back here.  I followed directions to CHT #2 which was located at a nice park with a parking area and walked the 200 feet or so to the trail itself.

On the trail, looking toward the parking lot.

The trail is paved, and basically goes in a line that stretches for about 2.5 miles.  This park was about a third of the way from one end of the trail, and while I really would have liked to explore the entire length, the weather really was a deterrent.  I did spend about an hour exploring, picking up four caches in total.  I was carrying my full caching kit with me today, so I had the presence of mind to take a few pictures:

Looking down the trail a bit.  Apparently I was listing to port when I took this.

Lots of interesting rock formations.  Jack would like this.

I had to resist a wicked urge to investigate the rock a bit further.  I wanted to be a geologist when I was kid, and when I come back here on a dryer day I'll probably poke around a bit, just for fun.

Welcome to the trail!  I had already been on it for about 1/4 mile by now, so the welcome was a bit late in coming.

A little bit of info.  It was also a drier underneath the overhang, so between the reading material and the respite from the rain it was a win-win.

Apparently there are events that happen here pretty frequently during the warmer months.

One of the reasons I really want to come back - history!

I've seen Laurel Hill Cemetery while driving, and this is its sister cemetery across the river - the West Laurel Hill Cemetery.  There are some caches right inside the entrance, but I didn't look for them as I was getting soaked.

I'm not sure if those are bike racks or sculptures.  Neat, regardless.

The trail parallels a creek.

I'm not showing some pretty interesting sights, mainly because caches were hidden there and I'm sticking to the no spoilers thing.  The picture below was taken from within a few feet of a cache, though it's obviously not in sight anywhere.

The water was moving pretty quickly.

The caches I found on the trail were all micro sized - mostly film canisters and bison tubes.  Effort had been put into hiding them, so they were all near a sight or feature that was pretty interesting.  I've never done a power trail or anything, and from what I've read they seem to favor quantity over quality.  I have to say that all of these were pretty decent hides, and I'm looking forward to coming back and picking up the rest. I'll do it when the weather is better and I can take more pictures, and will eventually post a location review.

I was totally soaked by this point, so I decided to head back home.  There were two things of note on the drive back:

1. I passed the Llanerch Diner, which was featured in the movie Silver Linings Playbook.  The only reason I mention this is because that movie was the inspiration for my third hide - Local Movie Locations / Celebrity Stalker Memorial.  They filmed locally for several weeks and my wife spent the whole time stalking Bradley Cooper.

Taken with my "phone", obviously.

2. My dippy little car hit 100,000 miles.  Kinda weird to think that I could have circled the Earth four times over instead of just commuting back and forth to work.

That's really it.  Looking ahead I have a pretty busy work week scheduled, but I'm hoping to get out and pick up enough to get me to 200.  No guarantees, of course, but I'm really looking forward to the milestone.

My Geocaching Kit

As I've mentioned before, I've never been an outdoorsy type.  Until I started caching the closest I got to camping... well, it was actually camping, but back when I was five years old.  Anything that took me outside was usually tied to some other nerdy interest, so I would gladly go out to launch model rockets or build a race track for my beloved RC car, but only because I loved my model rockets and car so much.

I started spending a lot more time outside once my son was born.  We live right across the street from a park, so that helps a bit, and as I've gotten older I've certainly developed a better appreciation of nature.

That being said, I have absolutely no experience packing a backpack for a hike.  I'm sure there is a better method to this than what I have come up with, and I'm also sure that there are better bags and supplies than what I'm using.  However, almost everything I have here was stuff that I had lying around the house, so the expense was minimal.

My kit has also evolved over the months since I started caching, and I'm sure it will continue to do so in the future.  This is really just a snapshot of what I carry with me now.

Backpack
Cost: $0
Value: Useful

...and I don't even remotely like Apple products.

I worked at Circuit City for many years and have accumulated a lot of vendor bribes.  Well, not really bribes as such; many vendors would give us presents as an incentive to sell more of their products.  So yeah, Ok, bribes. Anyway, I have a few backpacks that were given to me over the years, and this one has the most pockets and pouches.  I'm about as far from an Apple fan as can be, but hey, the free bag has been just fine for caching.

The backpack holds all of my stuff and has room for food and water if needed.


Garmin eTrex 20 and Accessories
Cost: ~$200
Value: Totally Worth It

Best birthday gift ever!

I actually got this as a birthday gift from my parents, so I'm listing the cost that you would spend if you
bought it from Amazon.  My wife got me the case, which is an absolute must.  I used to carry it in a ziploc sandwich bag before the case (to prevent scratches) but this makes things so much better.  There are quite a few case options out there, so pick out whatever suits your fancy.

The cable.

I also keep a spare cable for the GPS on hand, in case I'm at someone else's computer and need to load a GPX file or copy over a track or something.  I had quite a few of these cables lying around, so this was another freebie.

Spare batteries.

You also can't have enough spare batteries.  I'll probably eventually switch to rechargeable, but since we always have AAs on hand for Jack's toys I just replenish as I need them.  I keep these 4 together, and have a further 2 with the camera shown below.

Trinket Case
Cost: $1
Value: Needed it, but could probably find something better.

Not the best case, but it was only $1

I picked this up at a local dollar store.  Not really the best case, but it works and only cost a buck. I keep a few things in it:

Assorted trinkets and a Travel Bug.

I haven't spent more than maybe $7 or $8 on trinkets since I started caching.  I just try to trade for items of similar value.  I have many more that I didn't show - I just didn't feel like cleaning up a big pile of stuff.

Sandwich, snack, and pill size.

I also always try to keep some bags with me. I've generally used them to help waterproof contents of caches that have gotten damp, assuming that I can dry the damp items out a bit and not just make the situation worse.  The pill bags are great for log sheets in bison tubes etc...

Gloves
Cost: $10
Value: Priceless

I picked these up at Home Depot.

Gloves are probably the single most used item in my bag, aside from the GPS.  Many caches are in areas that range from simply grungy, to thorny, all the way to hazardous, and these were a great investment.

Sunscreen / First Aid Kit / Hand Sanitizer / Bug Spray
Cost: $20
Value: A Necessity

Sunscreen, in a plastic bag to avoid it getting everywhere.

I had the sunscreen on hand, which is why it's not travel sized. I was using it a lot in the summer when I was spending hours outside looking for caches.  I haven't needed it all that much recently, though I still carry it with me.

Mini first aid kit.  A small bottle of bug repellent is inside.

The first aid kit was very handy when Jack got a thorn wound.  I have not needed it since, but it's important to have one on hand, regardless.  Not shown: I keep a little spray bottle of bug repellent and a bottle of hand sanitizer in the first aid kit.  I used the bug spray quite a bit in the warmer months.

Camera and Accessories
Cost: Varies
Value: Don't bother with this is you have a decent camera on your phone.

Older model Canon camera with CHDK running.

I had this camera and its accouterments from my Kite Aerial Photography kit, so I didn't spend anything on it for caching.  When I bought this stuff several years ago it was about $100 for the camera.  The batteries are conveniently the same AA ones that my GPS uses, so I have a second set of spares just in case.

I like the Canon because I can run CHDK on it.  This software lets me hack the camera to do all sorts of stuff that it wouldn't normally be able to do, like time lapse (which is what I use for Kite Aerial stuff) or motion detection. If you have a lot of scenic cache areas and are into photography, you probably already have a better camera than this, so just bring whatever you feel is appropriate.

Of course, if you have a modern phone (I don't) you'll already have a better camera, so just use whatever you have.

Notebooks and Pens
Cost:  Less than $5
Value: Very Handy

Cheap notebooks from Staples.

Two pens and a stamper (which was a gift).  I always have at least two more writing utensils on hand, just in case...

I always have plenty of pens or pencils handy.  Right now I'm using pens, because that's what I have on hand.  My folks got me the stamper a while back, so that's been great for signing logs when I'm trying to be quick and stealthy.

I keep the notebooks as spares for larger caches, and I can tear sheets out if I need to replace a missing log sheet.  I have enough notebooks on hand that I could replace a whole log book in a bigger cache if need be.

No clues for you!  I blurred this to prevent spoilers.

I also keep one notebook for any notes I need to take while out caching.  This is very handy for multi-caches, as the Garmin only keeps one additional stage no matter how many multi-caches I'm working on.  i.e. if I get the coordinates for stage two of  Cache 1 I can add those coordinates to that Geoache in my GPS.  But if I then add stage two of Cache 2 instead of finishing Cache 1, the ones I originally stored as stage 2 in Cache 1 disappear.

It sounds confusing, but the long and short of it is that I keep all of that info written down in this notebook anyway.

Supplies to Repair, Replace, and Create Caches
Cost: About $15
Value: Not sure I should keep carrying this stuff with me.

Magnetic keyholder, nano cache, bison tubes, and canister style cache containers.

Some of this stuff I had on hand, other stuff I picked up cheap.  If you don't mind the wait, there are often some freaky good deals on bison tubes at dealextreme.com  I've been carrying this stuff with me for a while mainly because I store all of my caching stuff in the backpack.  I have not needed to replace an actual cache container, so honestly, I could probably stop carrying this with me and only bring them out if I know I need to replace a cache and have the CO's permission.

A bunch of cheap carabiners.

I picked up a whole bag of cheap carabiners for $3 at MicroCenter.  I've used these when placing my own caches, but as above, have not needed them otherwise.

Plenty of zip ties.

I have used several zip ties to replace fallen caches.  I'll keep these with me even if I stop carrying the other stuff.

I took a solemn vow to try to make my cache containers interesting, but 95% of what I've found have used regular cache containers, as shown above.  At this point, I like knowing that I have the stuff on hand if I need it, but if weight ever becomes an issue with my backpack, this'll be what goes first.  Knowing that I have the ability to repair caches is not the same as actually needing that ability 24/7.

12 Feet of Nylon Cord
Cost: Cheap
Value - Possibly useless?

If there's a good use for this, I haven't found it.

I actually usually have a big spool of 250lb kite line in my kit, but I lent it out.  I've used it to hang fallen caches and generally attach things to other things.  Once I lent it out I decided that I wanted to have some sort of cord in my kit, so I scrounged up some nylon stuff I had lying around and decided to teach myself how to make a paracord bracelet without actually having real paracord on hand.  The good thing is that it was pretty easy; the bad thing is that I will never use this and I only keep it on hand so I don't feel like it was a totally wasted experiment.

CITO bags
Cost: Free
Value: Worthwhile

These happen to be from Staples.

Yes, I know I could pick up some real trash bags cheap, but I always have these bags on hand and I'd just as soon use them.

Tools
Cost: Cheap or Free (except for the Leatherman)
Value: Handy

Picked from several old computer toolkits.

In order, I have use the tweezers the most, followed by the little grabber dealy (they come with 90% of all computer toolkits).  I've used the magnet and the mirror once or twice apiece.  I work in IT and have accumulated tons of computer toolkits over the years, so I just scrounged for this stuff.  MicroCenter has lots of things like this in their cheap section, so if you can't scrounge for it you can expect to pay about $2-$5 for each tool.

The Swiss Army Knife was a bribe from Lexmark.

I never actually got a chance to use my knockoff Swiss Army Knife because I ended up getting the Leatherman Wave from my wife on my birthday.  I have used it quite a few times, though in hindsight I really think that I'm going out of my way to figure out ways to do things that require me to use it.  i.e. "Rather than cross the footbridge, I can make my own by using the saw tool to cut down several small trees, the knife to cut and sharpen wooden pegs, the file to smooth things out, and the pliers to put it all together!"

Flashlights
Cost: $6
Value: The flashlight was worth it.  The blinky thingy... not so much.

One useful, and one not so much.

I have used the flashlight a lot, as many cache hiding areas can be quite dark.  I have never used the glowy light stick thing, though - that was an impulse buy at Home Depot when I was there with Jack.  At the time I had all of these crazy ideas about using it for night caching, but since every park in a 30 mile radius from my house closes at dusk, night caching is really just pipe dream.

I think I really keep it in the kit to keep my wife from finding out that I bought it in the first place. I mean, it was only like $3 or something, but she doesn't really appreciate my need for glowy flashlight things like she should.

Final item
Not Shown - The Official Geocaching Brochure

If you don't have one or two of these printed out and on hand in your kit, get it here.  While I have never been actually hassled by anyone about my caching, I have been approached by people curious about what exactly I am doing.  Having the brochure on hand makes any explanation easy, and it has the fringe benefit of introducing new people to the hobby.  I usually keep a few of these in my kit, and one or two in my car in case I am caching without my kit that day.

Final Thoughts

Since I do the bulk of my caching during lunch breaks at work, and many of the hides in that area are LPCs, nanos, and the like, I don't actually bring my kit with me 75% of the time.  I usually just have my GPS and a pen on hand.

If I'm planning ahead and I know I'll be in a larger park I'll take the full kit, though I think in the near future I'll be looking at a smaller bag to have with me on my day to day short trips.  I'll keep this one for times when I'm caching for an entire day, or need to bring my lunch etc...  I'll cross that bridge when I get there, though, and considering that I haven't had to spend all that much money on caching (so far, at least), I'm pretty happy with what I've put together.

Jack's Travel Bug Game is live!

I finally had a chance on lunch break today to drop off Jack's Travel Bug Game.  If you happen to be in the vicinity of Ithan Valley Park in Bryn Mawr, PA try to pick up Spectacular Crash II.  You may end up being the first person to play the game!

A short (but neat) NJ caching trip

Jack and I spent a little bit of time out caching with my dad today while we were visiting in NJ.  We didn't pick up a lot of caches, but it was an interesting day nonetheless.

My father is working on a new cache that will eventually be located in a field in his neighborhood.  Before we went caching we wanted to scout some specific potential caching spots and get some averaged coordinates with the Garmin.

Now for the "back in my day!" old man commentary - I grew up in this neighborhood and this particular field used to be more or less open with a few clumps of trees.  You could see all the way from one end to another easily, and we even used to launch model rockets and fly kites over there as it was ideal for that kind of stuff.  One time, when I was probably about 12 years old, a hot air balloon had gone off course and landed there since it was so open.

That's all changed.  The whole field is overgrown with trees, albeit small ones, and you can't see very far even in the winter.  It's actually a great potential caching area as there are paths throughout the mini-woods, and it's like a mini-adventure in the suburbs.

It was a balmy afternoon in the low 30s when we got there.  Jack was bundled up like Randy from A Christmas Story and I even had my hat on (which is rare).  The whole area was swampy and flooded, and the paths leading to where we wanted to scout GZ were flooded out, so we spent a lot of time bushwhacking.  After about 25 minutes of wandering swampy trails and trying to keep Jack from getting too muddy we reached the planned GZ, only to find this:

Somebody has built a log cabin fort.

The ultimate log cabin drinking fort is located in a field in a heavily built up suburban development.  It kind of reminded us of something that would have been in the Blair Witch Project, except that it was less than 300 feet in any direction to get back to civilization.

Jack exploring.  That's an industrial spool used as a table.

While things were a bit run down, it was obvious that someone or multiple someones have spent a lot of time building it.

Car seat  chair, and you can see the porch overhang on the right.

The logs looked like they were harvested right from this very field.  We found a nice little pile of logs nearby that looked like a potential addition.  With a tarp over the roof this would be quite the spot.

That's me, and I'm 6'8" tall, so this was pretty big.

There was a good amount of debris in the area, but that may be because it's the middle of winter and nobody's been here for a while.  While I'm curious to check this out again in the summer sometime (I marked the coordinates), it does put a damper on hiding a cache in the vicinity as it will probably see too much non-cacher activity.

By this time, Jack was getting cold and irritable about all of the thorns in the underbrush.  I've talked about caching with a kid before, but honestly with the 30 something degree weather, swampy ground, and potential scratches, he held up remarkably well.

We decided to pick up a few caches as we were on a somewhat tight schedule.  We drove a few minutes to pick up A pine highd and Mushy Squishy, both of which had been found by my dad in the past.  Jack had actually helped my parents find A pine highd back in May so I knew what to expect, but wow, that was a challenge to pick up.  Mushy Squishy was in the same park and was much easier to grab.  I was also able to trade trinkets for a light up yo-yo, so Jack was thrilled.

After these two, we went down the road a bit to check out the member's only 1743 potter's field, which is another one that my dad had picked up in the past.  I'm all about history, so this was a fascinating place to visit, even though there really isn't all that much to see.  Potter's Fields were where poor or unknown people were buried in unmarked graves.

Sign post.

What was most fascinating to me is that this is only like a 5 minute drive from where I grew up, but I had no idea this was here.  I wasn't that interested in history back then, either, so that's part of it.

Jack and my dad.

I found an article from 2003 about when they cleaned this field up.

The Boy Scouts maintain this area.

There is a marker stone explaining a bit of the history.

From what I've seen, this was a local John Penn.  There was a descendant of William Penn named John, but it looks like he spent all of his time in PA.  I may be wrong, though.

The field itself is pretty small, and it's kind of weird to think that you're strolling over a bunch of unmarked graves looking for a bison tube or something.

Not a very big field.

As I mentioned, my dad had picked this cache up before.  I used the Garmin and checked the hints but couldn't find it. He verified that it was no longer there, so I just planned on submitting a Needs Maintenance log.  The recent logs on my Garmin showed some DNFs, so I assumed that it was gone.  When I checked the cache out on the computer it turns out that the cache owner did some maintenance on the cache on Friday, and wouldn't you know that I updated my GPS on Thursday and was looking at the old coordinates?

My father caches with an iPhone, but because he saw that it wasn't where it had been, and because I saw the DNFs, we didn't bother to check it and ended up skipping this cache.  Oh well, it's only a few minutes from my parents' house, so I'll pick it up one of the next times we visit.

Jack was starting to complain about the cold again by this point, and who could blame him?  It was cold and windy, so he waited in the car when we picked up the nearby 7th Hole in Laurel Acres Park, which is a park that will eventually end up in my "Great Local Parks" post once I pick up a few more caches there and have a little more time to explore.  As it was, we were all getting cold and ended up heading home to warm up.

All in all this was a good day.  It's been great this week to get out caching again, and I really can't wait for the onset of warmer weather so I can really get out and about again without fear of frostbite.

Caches in this post:

• A pine highd
• Mushy Squishy
• 1743 potter's field
• 7th Hole

63 days 21 hours and 23 minutes

I finally broke my nearly 64 day cacheless streak!  I had to run to Micro Center on lunch break yesterday, so I picked up the nearby Last Minute Holiday Hustle & Bustle.

178 caches, 63 days since the last find.

Yes, this picture is from the "phone".

179 caches, and the icon changed to "found"!

I am so freaking glad to be out of my slump.  Everything is more or less back to normal, so I'm going to be picking up caches on lunch break again in the coming weeks. Woohoo!

A short list of local wildlife I have seen while Geocaching

I'm not exactly an outdoorsy type.  The vast majority of my hobbies are computer and electronic related, and on top of that I'm allergic to pretty much every kind of furred animal or leafy plant.  Geocaching has really expanded my horizons, at least in terms of my exposure to nature, and I have made it a point to keep track of what critters I have spotted while caching.

What I find most interesting about this is that I live in a very developed area.  I mean, there are parks and some open areas near where I live, but I wasn't really aware of the variety of critters that live practically right around the corner.

Groundhog - Spotted at The Gary Cache.  I actually see these all the time at work, but usually from the comfort of my car.  This one was only about 20 feet away.

Box Turtle - I spotted this little guy (or girl - I'm not enough of a turtle expert to know how to check) on my big birthday caching extravaganza day.  This was one of the only animals I was able to get a clear picture of, because a) I had an actual camera with me, rather than the one on my "phone", and b) it didn't really run that fast when I took the picture.

I was fast enough to get a picture before it sped off.

Hawk - I got within maybe 15 feet of a decent sized hawk while getting to the entrance of the Springfield Trail.  It was sitting on top of the backboard of a basketball hoop and didn't move until I was almost on top of it.  It was flapping its wings to fly off when I noticed it, so I didn't get a good look at its coloration or anything.  Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly what kind it was.

Three snakes:

• Rat snake - Found this one in the geopile at the GZ of one of my favorite caches - Italian Water Garden Ruins.
• Garter snake - I went traipsing after a cache that hadn't been found in a long time called Wide Open Spaces and ran into this little guy. 
• Milk snake - Very cool looking snake hiding in a tree near GZ of Wampa Cave.  My son came within inches of sticking his hand in the hole where this little guy was hiding.  Not a dangerous snake or anything, but it taught Jack a lesson about checking an area thoroughly with your eyes before using your hands.

Fox - Somebody spotted a fox at my Breakout cache.  I live within walking distance of here and have seen this fox before, so while I personally haven't spotted it while caching, I have seen it and am including it here.  Because I can.

Deer - There is a largish herd of deer living on the grounds where I work, and they're pretty common around here.  What was neat was when I visited the Happy St. Patrick's Day, Frank cache up by work, a mother deer with three little ones let me get within maybe 20 feet of them.  I took a crappy pic with my "phone", for what it's worth.

Those brownish blobs are actually deer.  Hard to tell, I know.

Bonus! - Deer skull - While checking out GZ of the fill in the blank puzzle cache (I didn't find it, BTW - this was shortly after Hurricane Sandy and things were a bit of a mess at the time) I came across a deer skull.  Jack was super pissed that I didn't take it home with me, but it was pretty funky looking.

Aside from the above, I have seen many other interesting birds, as well as fish, frogs, and turtles in the streams and ponds that I have visited.  Not bad for being in such a developed area, and it really makes me want to expand my caching area a bit to see what's out there.

A few quirks with the Garmin

I've been working on a tutorial post about adding free maps to a Garmin eTrex, and ran into a few quirks while getting screenshots.

When I first set up my eTrex 20 I used topographical maps from GPS File Depot.  The maps are very detailed but were not capable of using routes, at least from the GPS itself (never tried it in Basecamp).  Once I picked up a micro SD card I switched to the Open Street Maps national map, and since I could generate driving directions right from the GPS (and also since I've only really gone to parks or short trails where elevation lines wouldn't really do all that much) I never switched back to my original topo maps.  In fact, the only time I touched the topo maps at all was to move the map files from the internal storage to the card.

I was outside with my son for a little while yesterday and brought my GPS with me to take screenshots.  When I went to switch to the topo maps to show the difference, they didn't work.  When I went to Basecamp to reload the maps, they still didn't work.

The solution was simple - I always click any "Advanced options" button when using software of any type, and the advanced options when you load a map from Basecamp is where you can select what portion of a map to load.  Since I have plenty of storage I just want the whole thing, but since I clicked the Advanced button it only loaded one small part of the state instead of the whole thing.  Since the area is not near where I was using my GPS, I basically just ended up with a blank map.

So yeah, the quick fix was to just accept that the software knew what it was doing and let it load the map itself.  Everything works great now.

I've been working on a few posts this week and should have them up pretty soon.  They would have been done sooner, but my son is in Cub Scouts and it's the Pinewood Derby tomorrow and the past week has been busy with the car.  Fun stuff!

How to Take Screenshots on a Garmin eTrex 20 - and more!

Here's two quick Garmin eTrex 20 tips - how to take screenshots, and how to create a startup message.

The three current eTrex models are very similar, so this tutorial should also work on the eTrex 10 and eTrex 30.  I'm assuming that screenshots on the eTrex 10 will be black and white, as that model has a black and white screen.  If anyone happens to have an eTrex 10 and wants to try this out and leave a comment, that would be great.

How to take Screenshots

Setting your GPS up to take screenshots is a snap.  In the menu, click on Setup.

Next, click on Display.

Select Screen Capture and change the setting from Off to On.

This dialog window will pop up, explaining what to do:

Any time you see something on your screen that you wish to capture, press the Power / Light button.  Instead of popping up with the brightness settings, a screenshot is taken, and the file is left scrn subfolder of the Garmin folder.  Connect your GPS to your computer, navigate to that folder (shown below), and you're all set.

Click to Enlarge.

The files are in BMP format and can be used in pretty much any image editing, word processing, or desktop publishing software.

 While we're looking in the Garmin folder, open up the startup.txt file.

Click to Enlarge.

This file is where you can create a custom startup message that is displayed when you first turn your GPS on.  In my case, I have a message that just says that the GPS is mine, and to call me at my number if you happen to find it.

Click to Enlarge.

See the section where you can make the message stay online for X number of seconds?  If you have any custom maps (which I'm covering in another tutorial), your GPS is probably already staying on that screen for at least 10 -15 seconds anyway, so there really isn't any need to make that number anything other than zero.