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

A modern day curiosity cabinet.

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

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

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

A peculiar mansion built by the troubled heir to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune.

The space-age building is home to one of the few remaining rotating restaurants in America, and the only one that inspired a 1980s sitcom.

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

Oakland's beautiful monumental cemetery.

Julia Morgan's Moorish-Gothic labyrinth of fountains, trees, natural light and Oakland's notable dead.

Check out a shovel along with your Shakespeare.

The Laureates here get something even more coveted than a Nobel Prize: free parking for life.

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.

Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

These WWII-era murals were initially booed as a libelous portrayal of the American dream but have survived multiple attempts to have them destroyed.

Depicting scenes of everyday life - and specific individuals - in Great Depression era San Francisco.

A shining, cold, black organ lies in San Francisco's financial district.

Once the largest windmill outside of Holland, with enormous 114 foot sails.