America’s national parklands

Only about 3 million visitors a year make it over to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The faces were carved from 1927 to 1941.

Most Los Angelenos don’t know the National Park Service is right in their backyard. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area stretches from the beaches of Malibu to Calabasas. Here, fog rolls up Temescal Canyon in Pacific Palisades.

Daylight fades at Eagle Lake in Acadia National Park in Maine. It’s the third oldest park in the system, after Yellowstone in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and Rock Creek Park in the Washington, D.C., area.

Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania marks the site where the Continental Army camped in the winter of 1777-78 during the Revolutionary War.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia is a national historic park. Under President Dwight D. Eisehower, it was refurbished in time for the 50th anniversary of the National Park Service.

The south leg of the stainless-steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The National Park Service oversees Eero Saarinen’s iconic monument to westward expansion in the U.S.

Yes, the president lives in a national park. The White House and its grounds are known collectively as the President’s Park and are overseen by the national Park Service. Here, the White House is lighted for the first White House Campout for Girl Scouts in June last year.