"Must Have" GPS case

I wanted to put a quick plug in for an awesome protective case for the Garmin eTrex color series of GPSr's. The definition of an eTrex color includes the eTrex Vista C series, Venture C series, Legend C series, and the Summit C series. These units all have color screens and are all basically the same physical size (approx 4.2 x 2.2 x 1.2).

I've had one of these color units since I first started caching in Dec 2005. Since then I've acquired quite a collection of Garmin eTrex units - most of them color units. My kids use them when we go out caching and, of course, the kids aren't quite as careful with them as I'd like them to be. So shortly after I bought my second color unit a couple of years ago I searched for a case that would protect it from the wear-and-tear my young children put on it.

After quite a search I came across Foarm on Amazon (here's a link to search for Foarm on Amazon.com). After continuing to search and look for more options there was nothing like Foarm anywhere. So I bought one to try it out.

Long story short... The case is absolutely awesome! It holds the unit snugly and surrounds them with a plastic protective shield. Unlike other cases, there is no plastic cover over the screen - which usually make the screen very hard to read. Instead Foarm ships 2 screen protectors with the case.

I think I've now purchased 11 of these eTrex cases - 4 have been given away to other family members. I absolutely love these cases. Matter of fact I also bought two of them for my GPSMap 76CSx's. I see they now have one for the Garmin Colorado, too.

So if you looking to protect your eTrex color, 76 series, or maybe even the Colorado GPS (or have someone on your Christmas list who is) check these guy's out at Amazon. I've been very pleased with their product and customer support.

Note: I am not affiliated with Foarm, Inc in any way. I just tried their product and have been very impressed.

Geocoding addresses and loading them into your GPS

What does "geocode" mean and now is it going to help me? Geocoding is the process of converting an address (like 123 1st St) into a set of coordinates (expressed in Latitude and Longitude). I suppose that's not really correct, though. There is no "conversion" going on. Goecoding really finds a set of coordinates for a given address. In my testing I found it to be fairly accurate - at least close enough for me to get where I need to go.

How it will help you depends on what you're trying to accomplish. In my case, I work with the youth group at my church. Sometimes I provide rides to or from various activities and have to pick them up or take them home. I know these kids and their families very well, but that doesn't mean that I know how to get to all of their homes. I also don't know their addresses off the top of my head so just typing their address into the GPS isn't always an option, either.

So with the problem in mind I set out to find a solution. This article describes what I found.

As I thought about the problem I came up with a basic set of steps that I thought I would need to do.

1. Get the address data I needed
2. Format the data into proper format - whatever that meant
3. Geocode the addresses
4. Create a GPX file to load into the GPS.

Seemed pretty simple, I guess. At first I thought it would be fun to break out the coding skills and write something that did this for me. However, after a few hours with Google, testing a few things, and throwing some things away, I put my coding skills back on the shelf and came up with a fairly straight forward process for "Geocoding addresses and loading them into your GPS."

I tested the process with the Garmin line of GPS's. I tried it with a Garmin Nuvi 660, eTrex Vista HCx, GPSMap 76 CSX, and other eTrex units. I didn't have access to other brands to test but assuming they can deal with GPX files this should work just fine.

Once you've created the GPX file you can either load it onto your GPS as waypoints or you could even load it as points of interest. Points of interest act differently than waypoints so feel free to experiment with it until you get a format that you like. For this article I'm going to load the data as waypoints.

You should also take into account how may waypoints and/or points of interest your GPS can handle. In the Garmin line there are some that can handle 500 waypoints while others can have 1000 or more. Just make sure you consider how many you have and how many you're going to try and load.


1. Get your list of addresses - electronically of course unless you like typing.

2. Format the list into columns with the following structure (Excel works well). Make sure the first line is a column heading. You can use the example below to get it started.

Address City State Zipcode Name Description Symbol

Address = The street address of the person. "2400 Pennsylvania Ave"
City = The city. Try and be specific. "Coon Rapids"
State = The 2 letter abbreviation for the state: "MN"
Zipcode = The 5 digit US zip code "55432"
Name = The name of the waypoint you want in your GPS. I like the families last name for this. Keep in mind your GPS limitations on the length of a waypoint name. You'll also want to make each name is unique. Think about this one - don't just jump in with any old name.
Description = This will show up in the waypoint "comments" in the GPS. Keep in mind the max length your GPS will take. It will usually truncate it for you but you never know.
Symbol = The name of the icon you want to use in your GPS.

Here's an example of what it might look like (the lines may wrap)

Address,City,State,Zipcode,Name,Description,Symbol
123 1st St,Landen,MN,82520,Macfarlane,123 1st St 952-555-1212,Residence

You can see that I also decided to add the phone number to the Description field. That way I'll have their address and phone number in the GPS if I ever need it. Be creative and try various things with the name and description. You can't break it and anything you add can always be removed if you don't like it.

Here's a hint while you're testing... In the example above I used "Residence" as the Symbol (GPS Icon). The Garmin line of GPS units allow you to delete waypoints by symbol. So, if you use a unique symbol, say something like "Diver Down Flag 2" you can easily delete all the waypoints you just added by removing only the "Diver Down Flag 2" symbol. This will allow you load and delete the data as many times as you want without harming any of the existing data on your device.

Same logic should be applied to Points of Interest. Make sure you use a separate POI file just for these addresses. That way you can easily reload your other POI files if needed. I'm not going to go into details about POI files for the Garmin units but you can find ton's of information by Google'ing "Garmin POI"

3. Assuming you used Excel in step 2, save the file as a CSV file. If you didn't use Excel and just used a text editor, that's fine, too.

4. Open the CSV file in a text editor (wordpad or notepad) - NOT Excel!

5. Highlight all of the text. Press CTRL-A for a quick way to highlight all.

6. Press CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard. You can also choose File | Copy from the menu on most text editors.

7. Open a web browser and go to the following URL http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/
This web site is going to do the rest of the work for you. You can read all about what it's doing by visiting the web site.

8. Click in the white box labeled "Input" part way down the page.

9. Press CTRL-P to paste the address you created earlier into the "Input" box. You should see all of your address in the box. If nothing showed up, go back to step 4 and try again.

10. In the "Type of data:" dropdown box, select "Tabular (columns & a header row)"

11. Press the green "Start Geocoding" button to the right.
It will read the addresses in the "Input" box, lookup the latitude and longitude of the address, then create a set of formatted data in the "Results" box located below the input box.

12. If you want to keep the latitude and longitude data around for some reason you can copy can paste it into a new text file. I don't save this data. It can always be obtained again if needed.

13. Just to the right of the "Results" box is a button labeled "Create a GPX file" Press the button to create a GPX with all of your address in it.

14. Once the "Create a GPX file" button is pressed, it will create the GPX and open a new web (depending on the number of address you converting it may take a little longer). At the top of the page you can download the GPX file. In the middle you'll find the contents of the GPX that you can cut and past if you wish. Save the GPX file to your computer.

----- Note: From here you should check with your GPS documentation to see how to load data from a GPX file. The following steps will describe one way to load waypoints to a Garmin GPS by using the Garmin Mapsource software.

15. Start Mapsource and open the GPX file you saved.
You should be able to see all the waypoints for the addresses you used on the web site. You should also see the correct symbol/icon you used (eg "Diver Down Flag 2")

16. To send them to your GPS as waypints:
a: Connect your GPS to your computer and turn on the GPS
b: Select "Transfer | Send to Device" from the Mapsource menu.
c: Select Waypoints under the What to Send section.
d: Press the Send button to send the data to your device.

That's it. You now have all your friends loaded as waypoints on your GPS. Assuming your GPS has turn-by-turn navigation, you can now easily navigate to a an address by searching for the waypoint.

Questions and comments are always welcomed!

Note: I am not affiliated with GPSVisualizer in any way. They control the web site and may change it. In order to support the development of free tools like GSPVisualizer, feel free to contribute to them by using the links on their web page.

Woohoo! Winter Caching is back!!

I may be crazy but I really enjoy winter caching. Yes, sometimes it's too cold but for the most part as long as it's above 20 degrees it's the best time to be out.

I suppose some of it has to do with cleanliness. Many of my finds are done at lunch time. That means I'm wearing dress clothes most of the time. In the summer I all too often come back to work with dirt smudges on my pants or leaves on my back. The great thing about winter is that I cover all of those dress clothes up with "winter gear".

So two days ago I dawned my winter coat, snow/wind pants, snow boots and headed out for some caches. Now two day's ago I only needed that because it was cold. No snow on the ground yet but the wind was very cold with temps in the low 30's.

I didn't have much time so I only went after two caches (I'm leaving the names out because of the picture that shows the cache container). I headed out into the woods which soon became a swamp - but it's cold, right. There shouldn't be any water problems in the swamp when it's this cold... Silly me - Soon I stuck my boot into 6 inches of mucky, muddy, swamp water. Duh! it's only been cold for a day. I kept moving forward to find the cache and then on to the next one.

Side note: There you go - another reason winter caching is the best. Even though my foot was 6" under water in the muck, I didn't care! My snow boots are water proof and come up to my calf - see there are many reasons why I like winter caching.

The next cache was a great walk. It was cold outside but it was a clear afternoon which made the 1/3 mile walk each way worth it. After seeing the title I had a good idea what I was looking for but how could it be a regular size cache if it's what I think it is. Humm, maybe the hider messed up....

As the picture shows, nope, he didn't mess up. That's how a shot gun shell can be a regular size cache!! My glove is in the picture to show a relative size. Very cool container. Made finding it even more difficult.

Two days later.... (that would be today).

Today I had time to renew my drivers license which expires in a couple of weeks. I went a little early to miss the lunch traffic and it worked. I got out of there very quickly so off I went to Central Park in Roseville to find the caches - it's only a block away, how could I pass them up? The difference this time is that it snowed last night! Real winter caching today!! I once again dawned my winter gear and headed out to find a few caches.

I was able to nab 5 today, which once again cleared out Central Park for me.

ADAT The picture of the baseball field is close to where this one was hidden.

Fir Protestor by Posen. I love caching in Roseville primarily due to Posen. He has some GREAT containers! This one was near a wasps nest that was nesseled in a pole about 12" in diameter. Yikes! See the log posting for a picture.

Make an ash of yourself more winter fun - climbing a hill.

Fowl Ball This one was starting to make me mad. I can't believe how long it took me to find it!

Girls Scouts are Prepared Another Posen hide - but one that I wasn't expecting. Not his normal type of hide made this one harder that it should have been. Oh well, a find is still a find.

After all of that, my gloves were soaked, my pants and coat were wet, but my work clothes were dry and clean as could be.

Now back to work I go after a most excellent day of winter caching!