It's a few weeks before we actually leave for Minnesota, but there remains many tasks that are proving to accomplish with our helpful assistant Jo. It's a busy time of year for us in general. Both Becky and I are sprinting to the end of the school year, her from the perspective of a grad student, mine from the perspective of an educator.
We have been dusting off of our camping gear and generally getting organized. Becky and I have been pouring over road maps and we have determined that we will be taking US-2 across Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota until we reach Duluth, Then we follow the lake North East. We've been trying to figure out how we will be spending our time after we finish building our boat and searching through maps is a fantastic way to lose track of time.
Along side our paper road atlas and assorted state highway maps I have been engrossed in the world of electronic maps that are available for free to upload to my Garmin GPS unit. I have been fairly frustrated about how expensive Garmin maps are, and how proprietary the mapping software is. I was happy to stumble on a recommendation for free GPS maps on the ADVrider forum. Some of the folks over there were speaking highly of the simple but powerful website GPSFileDepot. I'm excited because last year I found a complete set of electronic topo maps for my GPS of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana for free (buying Garmin maps would have cost over $400). Now I have discovered a fantastic map that includes all the portages and campsites in the BWCA of Minnesota, so I'm pretty sure that I could waste a few hours planning how to paddle away the entire summer.
I'm eagerly packing up tents and tools, counting down the days until we head East.
We have been dusting off of our camping gear and generally getting organized. Becky and I have been pouring over road maps and we have determined that we will be taking US-2 across Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota until we reach Duluth, Then we follow the lake North East. We've been trying to figure out how we will be spending our time after we finish building our boat and searching through maps is a fantastic way to lose track of time.
Along side our paper road atlas and assorted state highway maps I have been engrossed in the world of electronic maps that are available for free to upload to my Garmin GPS unit. I have been fairly frustrated about how expensive Garmin maps are, and how proprietary the mapping software is. I was happy to stumble on a recommendation for free GPS maps on the ADVrider forum. Some of the folks over there were speaking highly of the simple but powerful website GPSFileDepot. I'm excited because last year I found a complete set of electronic topo maps for my GPS of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana for free (buying Garmin maps would have cost over $400). Now I have discovered a fantastic map that includes all the portages and campsites in the BWCA of Minnesota, so I'm pretty sure that I could waste a few hours planning how to paddle away the entire summer.
I'm eagerly packing up tents and tools, counting down the days until we head East.
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