Coast to Coast for Conservation

Unofficial Google Earth Companion

 Last update:

Day 73

Atlantic Ocean

YIPPEE!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings

 

You are most likely a follower and hopefully a supporter of the Coast to Coast for Conservation bike ride of Brad Edmondson and Jim and Sara Kersting to benefit the Finger Lakes Land Trust. Now you can re-live this magnificent adventure from your own home, in a fraction of the time and effort, through the magic of Google Earth. Here's how:

 

  1. You must have Google Earth installed on your computer. You can install the free version or the $25/year "Plus" version by visiting http://earth.google.com/. Either one should work, but you need to have a fairly strong computer and graphics capability, and a broadband connection to the Internet.

  2. Start Google Earth running on your computer and then load the following file: http://waterfeller.com/FLLT/BikeRide/Bike.kmz using the one of these methods that works best for you:
    1. Simply click on the hyperlink above. The file should open in Google Earth.
    2. In Google Earth, use the File -> Open command and then cut and paste the hyperlink above into the File name box.
    3. Right click on the hyperlink above and choose the Save target as… command to save the file on your computer. Then open the file in Google Earth.

  3. The Bike Ride file will load into your "Temporary Places" folder in the "Places" panel of the Google sidebar. (Use the View -> Sidebar command if the sidebar is not visible.)

  1. If you double-click on the main "Bike" folder, you will see many of the places mentioned in the C2C4C Blog. If you double-click on a state name, you will see the places mentioned in that one state. You can also see the trip for a single day by double-clicking on the day number. If you double-click on a place name (e.g., Canyon, WY), you will see a helicopter tour view of that place.

  2. You can use the Tour feature to play a "helicopter view" of the tour for a day, for a state, or for the whole trip. Simply highlight the folder in the places panel and use the Tour -> Play Tour command, or highlight the folder and then click the Play button:
  3. You can pause and resume the tour by clicking the Pause and Play buttons.

  4. You may need to experiment with the settings for your tour by using the Tools -> Options command and clicking on the Touring tab. The following settings work OK for me; it takes about 9 minutes to go from Puget Sound to Devil's Tower.

           

  1. To reduce screen clutter, you might also want to experiment with your Layers settings. I like the following:

           

  1. I will try to keep the KMZ file updated as the trip progresses provided I have no broken spokes on my computer. I recommend that you do not save the temporary places folder when you exit from Google Earth. Then, if you return to this page in a few days and download a fresh copy of the file, it will not create a duplicate entry on your computer.

 

If you have any questions, suggestions, additions, or corrections, please contact me directly.

 

Roger Hopkins

Lansing, NY