South Dakota is a severly underated state. Perhaps that's just my perception of it, but I don't hear many people get excited when you say you're going to South Dakota. And to be fair, there is a large (i.e. most of) area of SD that is filled with almost as much nothing as Nebraska.

But there is a small section in Western SD that is unquestionably necessary to experience. It houses Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Custer State Park, the classic old west town of Deadwood, Sturgis, the Black Hills, and a surprisingly unmarked spot called The Needles.

The Needles are a collection of jagged rock spire formations that protrude from the thick trees covering the hills. We inadvertantly discovered this area as we drove from Wind Cave. It doesn't cover a lot of ground, but the entire region of the Black Hills should be a National Park.

Below are short descriptions of each point of interest from this area we saw in a 2 day period: