NG TOPO! State Series Maps, HP Slate 500 and Garmin GPSmap 60CSx

Jerry

Adventurer
I suppose I am sort of late coming to the party, but I finally acquired enough gear to assemble a workable route-tracking computer program and I love it.

My first acquisition was a used Garmin GPSmap 60CSx. Can't go too far wrong there.

Next came four National Geographic TOPO! State Maps for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The price had already been cut to about 50 bucks per state so it could have been worse. And even if I never went any further with my project the maps would come in handy on my PC. Since then I have added California, Nevada and Utah and will perhaps add more in the future.

Next, and what I hoped would be last, was a reconditioned Windows 7 HP Slate 500 tablet. The unit was reconditioned by Hewlett Packard and had a warranty so I figured I would take a chance and save a couple hundred bucks in the bargain. The Slate is just the right size to mount on the dash and is big enough to see the routes and tracks, but I am not in love with the relationship between the stylus (pen) and the screen. It does take some getting use to.

Well I wasn't quite finished, but close. Next came an inexpensive plastic mount, an extra stylus in case I lost the original, a package of AAAA batteries for the pen and last, but not least, a 300 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter to run the Slate and maybe a laptop should I so desire.

Until last weekend I tested it around our neighborhood and it worked great. I could hardly wait to give it a real test. So last week a few of us ran some backroads in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest of Central Oregon. Some of the roads were closely parallel to one another and it could have been confusing following our route on a paper map. But, the yellow route and red track (colors I had chosen when I laid out the route at home) left no doubt as to our exact whereabouts and which road to take at intersections. And the plastic mount worked good, too, with a little help from a home-made brace and a couple of screws.

Where has this thing been all these years? Why didn't I get into it sooner? Hey, it ain't cheap, but neither is a swing-away tire carrier.
 

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