The "3rd largest" city in California is an empty mirage of suburbia in the middle of nowhere.

Along a California highway is a kind of Jurassic Park made of metal.

The interior of the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining" was based on this Yosemite original.

A pair of large white marble lions guard this stretch of the Mojave Desert, and it is utterly mysterious how they got there.

A world-class observatory in the California desert.

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

This impressive tunnel was dug entirely by hand over the course of 36 years.

The liveliest ghost town in the state.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

The highest dunes in California are the most likely place in the area to hear the Singing Sands.

One of the most unusual geological features, recognizable from a dozen hit movies.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

A modern day curiosity cabinet.

An extraordinarily ornate museum in San Diego holds wondrous anthropological treasures.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

Costumed elves and mountain bikers co-exist peacefully at this abandoned Christmas-themed adventure park.

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

The final resting place of a space program monolith.

Once thought to be the oldest living tree in the world, Methuselah was germinated before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

An inconspicuous footbridge beloved by San Diego locals.

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.

The ghost town that ended up on Ebay.

Finale of "William Tell Overture" can be heard as drivers pass over grooves in the road.