Hey, Buckshot, I have an Garmin 12XL, too. I think it's great. On one occasion, I was returning to camp and realized I had lost or left one of the lense covers of my spotting scope somewhere. So, using the GPS, I backtracked alomost step for step. Bingo, got my lense cover back just like that!
Thanks for mentioning how you could interface the GPS with software for your computer. I find that to be not only helpful in planning a hunt, but also just plain fun. I've got several pieces of software for this. The National Geographic Topo and the DeLorme are both great. (The National Geographic is more accurate, overall, but they compliment each other by giving slightly different details.) Using either on of these, you could punch your route onto the sceen of your computer. If it looks good, you could then upload it into your GPS so that when you arrive at your hunting spot, you just turn on the GPS and go. You can also reverse the process by marking waypoints and routes into your GPS while hunting, and when you get home, download them into your copmputer software for a record of your hunt. If you also download Google Earth (free) and look at the same area, adjusting viewing anlges and rotating the picture to the actual view that you would have when approaching the area, you can get a super idea of just what the terrain will look like even before you ever see it in real life. Google uses actual satellite photos so you can see trees, fencelines and real landmarks. I even found my house with my truck parked outside. Haven't seen any elk or deer yet, but it's almost that good. If the photos were in real time, they'd have to make it illegal. Heck, it's pretty scary already!! It's amazing!!!
Bruce, be careful, you can get atticted to this kind of fun!