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By the SeizeTheJourney.Com Webmaster 
AGirl mentioned that people tend to get a kick out of some of the route maps that I make of her travels around the country. The Map Of Her 4-Corners Tour was apparently a big hit. Maps like these are not difficult to create and I think that they add something to ride reports that more people can relate to. Telling someone that you rode 700 miles on a motorcycle for lunch is one thing, but showing it to them on a map is something that they can more easily visualize. For those who would like to know the "Secret", here is how it's done: First you need something to capture the GPS data. AGirl has an account with a company that uses her cell phone to provide GPS tracking on a semi-realtime basis. It grabs points about every 10 minutes when the phone is on and in an area with cellular coverage. They are then available on a web site so that authorized people can see where the phone is physically located. The results can be displayed on a map or in a table similar to the one shown below:
This information can also be exported to an Excel spreadsheet for further analysis, and that is what I use to compile the information. I open the spreadsheet in Excel and then save it as a CSV (Comma Delimited format) file on my computer. I then use GPS Babel (available free from GPS Babel) to convert that CSV file into a Garmin database that I can read into my mapping software. I use the Mapsource software from Garmin since it came with my GPS. I open the database that was created with GPS Babel and the software plots all of the waypoints that were received from the cell phone. I then just create a "Route" from the first one to the last one and Mapsource will plot it on the map. I turn off the waypoint labels, and capture an image of the screen ([ALT][PRINT SCREEN]), and then use Paintshop Pro to create the final JPEG image of the map. Her 700 Mile Seafood Lunch would look something like this at this point:
Keep in mind that this is how I do HER maps. When I'm plotting information from my own GPS things are a little simpler and I have a couple of alternative methods. I have two GPS devices, a Garmin ETrex Legend C and a Garmin Street Pilot 2820. Both of them use the same software on my computer at home, and both have the same data format so I can easily move information between them and my computer. When I ride I simply save the "Track Log" from the GPS to my computer, load it into Mapsource, and it plots on the map something like this:
Since Mapsource draws the tracks somewhat light I usually use Paintshop Pro to enhance them so that they are more easily visible on the map. That will create something that looks like this:
The point being that if you have a GPS and some mapping software on your computer then you probably have most of what is necessary to create some maps of your rides that you can post on the internet. All you need to do is save the data from your GPS, get it plotted on the mapping software, and then capture that screen image and save it to a file. To capture a screen image just get the screen to look the way you want it, and press the [ALT] and [PRINT SCREEN] keys on your keyboard. This will save what is on your screen to the Windows "Clipboard". Next, run Windows Paint ([START] / Programs / Accessories / Paint), and when it starts select "Paste" from the File menu to paste the image into Paint. Next just save the image to your computer (FILE / SAVE AS, and change the drop-down from "24-Bit Bitmap" to "JPEG") and you can upload it to a web site to make it available on the internet for others to see. Paint itself doesn't provide many tools for manipulating the image, such as cropping out only the portion that you want to save, so you may want to investigate more powerful imaging programs. I personally use Paintshop Pro, however the version that I have is a few years old (the rights to Paintshop Pro were purchased by Adobe from the original authors (JASC) and I decided not to upgrade it any further since I'm not a bit Adobe fan). There are many freeware image manipulation programs available on the internet so finding one that suits your purposes should not be difficult. Taking things one step further, if you have a subscription to Google Earth PLUS (this will NOT work with the free version of Google Earth) you can plot the GPS information over a 3-dimensional aerial photograph of the Earth. You can get some interesting views from this software. Here are three images of AGirl's 700 Mile Seafood Lunch:
A view of the GPS map itself:
A Google Earth view of the route from about 78.5 miles altitude, and facing east:
And another Google Earth view of the route from about 10,000 feet altitude, and facing east:
You can do a lot of interesting things with GPS information. In addition to having one on your bike to show you how to get from point "A" to point "B", how to get back home from point "B" when you have no idea how you got there, or knowing more or less what part of the country you are in when you decide to let AGirl take the lead, you can also provide interesting information for your friends and family to see. They are a lot of fun to have around, and to me they are well worth the investment. For more information on basic GPS operations the Garmin Web Site is a good place to start.
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