This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.

Barely visible foundations remain where Stow Lake’s “observatory” once welcomed visitors.

Part mural and part sculpture, this work of art sits in the middle of the Promenade, as if swimming in a river of asphalt towards the ocean.

A quiet marker in memory of local men and women lost in WWI.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

San Francisco’s century-old Christmas Tree.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.

Once strictly off-limits, this lower level housing curious and priceless vehicles of the Petersen Automotive Museum is now open to the public.

The final resting place of a space program monolith.

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

This Japanese treats shop may have been the first business to mass-produce fortune cookies in the United States.

Floating man-made island and upscale restaurant.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

A century and a half of research in the sciences and natural history, still going strong.

The oldest lawn bowling club in the United States.

Perfect your fly fishing technique on their practice ponds.

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

Home to one of the world’s largest collections of model yachts.

A playing field for a popular French past time can be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Golden Gate Park.

The neighborhood church casts a breast-shaped shadow that locals have come to call the “two o’clock titty.”