An enormous illuminated figure dances on the Las Vegas strip.

A famous alternative culture epicenter and where Joplin serenaded young hippies.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

Tenacious mummies survived dental problems, eternal entombment, and more than their fair share of devastating fires.

Inside an old airplane hangar, friends and strangers alike play on a massive trampoline.

A monument to the love people have for their pets.

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

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.

The randomness of this wall of lava lamps helps encrypt up to 10 percent of the internet.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

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

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

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

A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

A little marble compass above George Washington's (empty) tomb in the Capitol marks where D.C.'s four quadrants intersect.

A rotating cast of guys and dolls in front of a Washington, D.C. building.

When it opened during the final years of the embargo, all the drinks and cigars were free.