Nav system: finding "along route"

OK, maybe I went through the manual a tad quickly and missed the point, but I was wondering if there's a way to do a particular function with the Nav system.

I've had a Garmin 2620 GPS for a couple of years now, and one feature I love is to search for a particular item (what the Nav system would call a POI) along the current route, or within a specific distance from it.

For example:
Summer of '04, I went on a cross-country drive. I'd settled into the long, boring drive across the Plains states (no offense to those living there) when I looked down and saw that I was barely cracking a quarter tank of gas.

D'oh!

No problem. I hit Find on the GPS, and set it to look for Auto Fuel within 1 mile of the current route (i.e., along a corridor paralleling the programmed route along an interstate). Ten miles later I pulled into an Exxon within sight of the interstate. Splendid function, but I can't seem to find anything like it on the Nav system. Put another way: once a route is set and being followed, to find a POI anywhere along it.

I used this all the time. If I my destination was a particular city or landmark, once the day started getting late, I could have the GPS look for a motel that was further up the route I was taking, and it would even give me a choice of them by distance (so I could choose a motel that also gave me another 30 miles of travel, if I so choose).