The American West gives our nation a rich variety of people, places, and history. From our border with Mexico in the southwest to our connection with Canada in the Northwest, the region encompasses an large, but amazing part of the United States.

We have begun the western portion of our work on the Our National Parks Project. While modest, this beginning focuses on California and Nevada. We hope to add more visits and stories from the West in the months ahead.

Our first stops include the city of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park as well as the Las Vegas and Boulder City areas of Nevada.

Alcatraz Island, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, as seen from San Francisco Bay (Photo by Jessy Schuster).

Both are exciting places for different reasons. The beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the icons of the West, is breathtaking to all visitors. And the dramatically different desert region of Las Vegas and Boulder City gives us Lake Mead and the Boulder Dam along the famed Colorado River as it heads toward the Pacific Ocean. Join us as we visit these places and explore them for you....

A tour group learns about Boulder Dam, also known as Hoover Dam, at Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder city, Nevada (Photo by Diana Offutt).