nuvi 255 geotagging or another solution?

hi.
I have a garmin nuvi 255. I just bought, and happy with the general gps
function and maps.. While looking in the filesystem I saw a .gpx file
and opened it. There was my waypoints, but also some track logs - which
is AWESOME. Seeing this, and my geek side showing for all to see, I
wanted to try geotagging some photos. So I took the garmin and my camera
out there to get data. I made a few mistakes long way. namely that
camera lost battery life, sd full, ohhh.. and timestamp wrong haha

Ok... well, to make a long story short, I got back and tried several
freeware programs like geosetter, atom gps, GPicSync. None would sync.
So I went back into the gpx file and found that today only was first
time it didn't log me... I have previous day and my 5 other voyages. I
went out again, same route and after getting back I had traveled roughly
.5km and the gps tracked me the whole time up the road. Opened the .gpx
and no data at all.

So is this because of distance traveled? or because I set it up as
pedestrian instead of driver maybee? Obviously it has some limited
logging - not available in the mainscreens but how do I start/stop/reset
that data now without update? I didn't think not having a trip log would
bug me much but this sucks now I know it does kind of work.

If anybody would help with this one please and thank you. Because its
just bought I may take it back for upgrade that'll log.. not sure.
What other basic gps devices have the data logger function in it
natively (through the screen/menu)? Also if you could recommend a teeny,
tiny geotagger/logger that doesn't require a computer instead thats
cool. Like the "Freedom Keychain GPS 2000" are those small of gps units ok?

thanks
Geo