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

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

Stripes of flowers bloom each spring in a 50 acre rainbow of color.

Trails through lava-carved tube-caves display sparkling bacteria and a rich history.

Canyon walls shrouded in ferns.

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

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

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

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

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

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.

A look into the Church of Scientology's deeply unfavorable view of psychiatry.

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

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.

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

Left untouched since a double murder-suicide in the 1960s, Los Feliz murder mansion remains a neighborhood mystery.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

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

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

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