This industrial area was the dumping ground for massive amounts of trash, some of which washes up as tiny bits of sea glass.

A beach made of semi-precious green sand on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

This black shoreline is made up of exploded lava particles.

Floating man-made island and upscale restaurant.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

At the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, a small sign basically begs for a high-five.

This surreptitious shop is only open five hours per week.

The legendary statue-hating superintendent of Golden Gate Park is honored with... a statue.

This print shop boasts one of the largest pinball arcades in San Francisco.

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

Recovered from the brink of extinction, at home in the Financial District.

This 19th-century church is now a popular roller rink.

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

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

San Franciscans leave gifts and messages for the magical beings that live behind the tiny, mysterious door installed on a tree in Golden Gate Park.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

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

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

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

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

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

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.