Thank you! Exactly what I was hoping for. Following the instructions that you refer to, the "upload drafts" button works a charm right from the geocaching.co, dashboard. With the garmin connected to the PC, the "geocache_visits.txt" file was easily browsed to, and uploaded directly.
thanks 31!
Max, the garmin worked perfectly in the white mountains, while the iPhone had lost cell coverage hours prior. The handheld GPS device is "familiar" to old dudes like me, I've been using GPS devices since the 90's... just not for geocaching I just didn't know the garmin was writing a second raw data file called "geocache_visits.txt" It makes perfect sense - because like I thought, you can't re-upload a GPX file without fear of clashes.
Thanks for reading my post!
Craig