Location: Within a 100 mile radius of Rapid City, South Dakota

Within a radius of 100 miles or so of Rapid City, South Dakota, one has Devil's Tower National Monument, Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, Mt. Rushmore National Monument, Jewell Cave National Monument, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse Monument, the town of Deadwood, the Black Hills in general, as well as other photogenic locations. It's a diverse area, with desert, mountains, plains, caves, historical sites, wildlife and more. One could literally spend months here and not see everything. Scenic drives and hiking trails are everywhere. The towns are picturesque, the mountain streams inviting, the badlands haunting.

The area covers the southwest corner of South Dakota and extends into Wyoming. The major thoroughfare through the Black Hills is US Highway 385 from Hot Springs in the south to Deadwood in the north. Along this highway, or not far off it, one will find the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park as one drives north, Jewell Cave west on US 16, Crazy Horse Monument as one drives towards Mt. Rushmore, with Mt. Rushmore just north of Custer State Park near Keystone, and drive through very scenic landscapes as they drive on to historic Deadwood, which can be a jumping off place for the drive to Spearfish and its Passion Play, or the annual rally of Harley Davidson motorcycles in Sturgis.

Besides the beautiful scenery and wildlife of the Black Hills, Black Hills gold, gold mines, ski areas, hiking and riding trails, campgrounds, and historic areas also attract visitors to this area.

East of the Black Hills is Badlands National Park, a beautiful and haunting area of natural erosion offering strange and fantastic photo opportunities whether staying on its scenic drive or hiking into its interior.

Driving northwest from Rapid City into Wyoming, it isn't far to Devils Tower National Monument, made famous by the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and located just off Wyoming Highway 24, is a site one has to see to believe. If one has blue skies and fluffy clouds, you won't believe the great photos you can come away with.

A few Internet resources for the Black Hills Region are: www.blackhills.com, National Parks of South Dakota, and Devils Tower.

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