Today we started out with another meal at the Denny's classic diner. I didn't like the breakfast as well as I liked supper. I got a better picture of the inside of the diner though. It really is neat!

 After breakfast we took some time to set the Garmin for our destination. The learning curve on this is a slow one. I haven't exactly got the nack of getting the Garmin to go where I want it to. I can put in the destination, but that doesn't mean it will go the route I wanted to go. We finally gave up and decided to just go where it wanted us to. My husband was sure for a while it was going to take us to Chicago instead of Maryland, but the exit he was looking at turned out to just be a route to another route that went the right way.

Monte said we were in the foothills of the Appalachians and that they would get bigger as we traveled east. He was right!

Today we didn't need to get to Fort Meade until closer to 4 p.m. and I wanted to take some pictures so I tried to figure out how we could do that without going off the beaten path too far. We happened across a tourist info center on our way through West Virginia. I asked the guy in there if he knew of anything like that and he suggested we visit a place  is called Cooper's Rock Overlook. We just drove a mile off of our route. 

Then we had to walk about 50 yards to get these views:

I got a shot of Richard headed out to the outcropping. It was beautiful. The gray rock where the fence/rail keeps you from falling off is a natural occurence. The rails and rock piers were added later. Several cabins wer built around this area during the great depression with CCC workers. A person could spend hours there investigating trails and visiting the cabins. We got there at totally the wrong time of day for taking photos, but we did anyway. 

Part of the overlook outcropping.

 Richard standing on Cooper's Rock.

 Me on the edge.

The view from above. Rotten haze is spoiling the shot, but you can get the idea how beautiful this area is.

 We got in to the Forte Meade area at about 4 p.m. I would never have found it without my GPS. We had a litte trouble finding the Ramada Inn, Garmin told us we had arrived about a block too soon. I called the hotel and got guidance to the next block. HA!

We showered the road grub off and called my son. He got lost using his GPS finding our hotel, but he finally got there and we had a wonderful dinner at the Olive Garden with Jacob and the Bride to be. If there were any doubts in my mind about him jumping into marraige so fast they are gone now. I loved her right away. 

She's a sweet young woman and they are so obviously in love. They are getting married Friday instead of Thursday, because they just haven't had the time to plan it out. As they both teach journalism at Fort Meade it is the end of their class unit and the work load was heavy. Add to that they got news that Roz is supposed to be shipped out to Germany in February, which means that Jacob will too if it all goes through. He said that it isn't written in stone yet, but of course it seems like they have their trials cut out for them already. I know somehow it will all work out.

I hope they can get around it. Jacob and Roz both have already spent two tours in the Middle East. When  you get stationed in Europe...it just means you will be getting deployed in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Roz has three kids.... who knows what will happen.