SOUTH DAKOTA - Last minute travel specials to Mount Rushmore, Rapid City, and Sioux Falls.

Mount Rushmore - (Use Rapid City specials) - This epic sculpture features the faces of four exalted American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. South Dakota's Black Hills provide the backdrop for Mount Rushmore, the world's greatest mountain carving. These 60-foot high faces, 500 feet up, look out over a setting of pine, spruce, birch, and aspen in the clear western air.

The Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center and Musuem has interactive exhibits and two theaters that show a film about the memorial. The memorial faces southeast and is best viewed and photographed in the morning light. Short trails lead to the Sculptor's Studio and to the amphitheater. The studio has exhibits that include the original tools, models and other carving equipment. The Avenue of Flags connects the Concession Building to the Grandview Terrace. The walkway is lined with the official flags of the 56 U.S. states, territories and districts, arranged in alphabetical order. The Avenue provides direct and easy access to the Grandview Terrace and the Presidential Trail, offering spectacular views of the mountain sculpture. A parking fee is required to enter the Memorial; however, a free parking area is also provided.

The Badlands National Park - (Use Rapid City specials) - A striking moon-like landscape rises abruptly from South Dakota’s western, prairie hills. Chiseled spires, steep canyons, low-slung buttes and jagged ridges were created from millions of years of ruthless ravages by wind and water. When they first encountered these unusual formations, the Lakota aptly called them Mako Sica or bad land. Badlands National Park covers 244,000 acres and contains one of the world’s richest deposits of fossils from the Oligocene epoch.

Go Caving - Jewel Cave is the third-longest cave in the world. Nearly 130 miles of passages have been surveyed. Calcite crystals that glitter when illuminated give the cave its name. The cave’s most common crystals are dogtooth and nailhead spar. The cave is located about 13 miles west of Custer.

With more than 110 miles of mapped passages, Wind Cave is one of the longest caves in the world. It contains the world’s largest display of a rare formation called boxwork. Above ground, the park is comprised 28,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie and ponderosa pine forest that is home to bison, elk, prairie dogs and other wildlife..