A working model of a pressure-driven, high-speed rail whizzes around a private vineyard.

An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

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

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

A tiny theater hidden in an alley plays a constant stream of short silent films for anyone willing to peer through the peephole.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.

America's most famous piece of self-built architecture.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

A hand-built folk art installation covered with messages of God's love.

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

A pair of slides and a tree-lined stair corridor have been an urban oasis for nearly 40 years.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

Carved by a waterfall in a hard-to-reach rock formation, this heart-shaped rock has inspired romantics for decades.

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

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

This Big Sur waterfall drops 80 feet directly into the Pacific Ocean, and inspired the hillside house up top.

Eons old volcanic activity created one of the most stunning rock formations in the United States.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.