The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

The echoes of a railroad town that solemnly mark the end of the line.

This graffiti-covered bridge is the quintessential vision of a place for disillusioned youth to escape the complexities of burgeoning adulthood.

This hilltop park offers magnificent views and a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.

Hiding amid the largest camellia collection in the country lies a charming children's maze, donated by a secret admirer.

North America's largest accredited model railroad museum.

A B&B on a Victorian lighthouse station in San Francisco Bay.

This mountaintop beacon is only lit three times a year but shines like some kind of all-seeing eye.

The tragedy of the Japanese internment camps is remembered here by a stark "Soul Consoling Tower."

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

One of the few remaining carousels built by master amusement park carver Charles I.D. Looff.

Get up close to emus and ostriches, or buy their tasty meat.

A dwindling menagerie of anthropomorphic oil derrick animals still dot the barren California landscape.

This dormant volcanic crater has been converted from a roiling pit of magma to a pleasant hiking spot.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

A music-filled, booze-soaked oasis in the desert.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

A "haunted" landmark on the coast of Southern California.

Oldest building in California still in use.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

NASA's leading space science lab started by a co-founder with deep ties to the occult.

A giant donut stands as a popular symbol of Los Angeles iconography.

One woman's Viking Castle on Lake Tahoe.

Arcadia is home to a haven for nature geeks and 80s TV lovers alike.