Fittingly, America's museum of architecture is itself a magnificently designed old building.

Members of Congress have traveled between the buildings on Capitol Hill for a century hidden from tourists, press, and storm clouds.

One of the dwarven trees dates back to 1625 and survived the Hiroshima bombing.

A lovely aquatic park built by a one-armed Civil War veteran who made a fortune from lotuses.

A girls' boarding school inspired by the Chicago World's Fair, once abandoned, now restored to strange and scenic glory.

A benevolent, 16-foot-tall river dragon lives on a suburban lawn.

Live data is transmitted from the Atlantic coast to instantly recreate the ocean waves in this fountain at the NOAA headquarters.

An intricately designed junk art house with four extravagant junk art cars hidden in the suburbs.

An unusual sculpture, an interesting history, in a strange place, for a good cause.

This dig site outside D.C. is known for its exceptionally high density of baby dinosaur fossils and dinosaur eggs.

A local farm's collection of unusual structures from a now defunct storybook amusement park.

A hidden alley in urban Baltimore is a haven for graffiti artists.

Crammed into a Baltimore row house is an oddities shop that sells everything from skulls to dead insects.

Once a thriving business district, this former shopping area is now an urban ghost town in the heart of the city.