PARKS & CANYONS SPECTACULAR - 2010

13 days from Rapid City to Las Vegas (AP)

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Vacation Overview

Marvel at the West's premier natural wonders on this 6-state escorted tour. Your vacation starts in Rapid City, South Dakota, with visits to the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana and tour the battlegrounds where Custer was defeated. Continue to Cody, Wyoming, then head to Yellowstone National Park to see magnificent views of Yellowstone Canyon, Lower Falls, and world-famous Old Faithful Geyser. Journey into breathtaking Grand Teton National Park for a delightful walk along glacier-fed Jenny Lake, and experience a chuck wagon cookout, Wild West show, and free time in Jackson.

Next, it’s on to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a sightseeing tour; then marvel at the “hoodoos” and dramatic landscapes of Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park. Continue into Arizona to Page, on the shores of Lake Powell, for an afternoon cruise. Cross the Painted Desert to the amazing Grand Canyon, where you witness amazing and mouth-dropping beauty. Your hotel is located on the rim of the Grand Canyon, giving you a rare opportunity for great views. Finally, travel part of the legendary Route 66 to Las Vegas, where this spectacular escorted tour ends. On this vacation through some of the West’s premier national parks, you see breathtaking scenery that cannot be found anywhere else!

Fall Foliage Departures:
Enjoy the spectacular fall colors of the West on our special Fall Foliage departures: September 17–October 1 (if Mother Nature permits).

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Things to see on your vacation: View Vacation Photo Slideshow

A Vacation Story Mount Rushmore: The Secret Chamber

The four presidential faces, carved 60-feet high in the granite of Mount Rushmore, comprise one of America’s most revered images. But many visitors cannot help thinking of Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest, where he and Eva Marie Saint clamber across the monolith pursued by Communist spies. The shot was actually filmed in a Hollywood studio, but it convinced millions of people that they too could climb the patriotic monument. This is not the case: Access to Mount Rushmore has been blocked by a high-security fence ever since the artist Gutzon Borglum died in 1941 and work on the giant sculpture ceased. But according to his original plan, Borglum had intended that the public be able to reach his giant faces via a splendid stone staircase. In the late 1930s, he even began work on a splendid vault buried within the rock for tourists to visit – called the Hall of Records, it was planned as a repository for the original Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.