A dwindling menagerie of anthropomorphic oil derrick animals still dot the barren California landscape.

Perfect your fly fishing technique on their practice ponds.

This interpretive path lets you get up close and personal with dinosaur bones.

A breathtaking array of ancient Pueblo structures and artifacts counterintuitively preserved by neglect.

Abandoned hotel with adjacent lake and golf course.

Inside this museum, the history of the Walt Disney Family empire is on full display.

"You don't need a rocket scientist to build a steam engine, but we've got one." -Museum docent on the credentials of a restoration volunteer.

A living time capsule of the 1960s Richardson Bay water-front.

A pier that used to act as a busy ferry dock is now a decaying favorite of local fisherman and urban artists.

There are lots of hands and feet stamped in the cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, but Mel left behind something extra.

Once close to extinction, there is no shortage of elephant seals on the beaches of Año Nuevo State Park.

The fossilized remains of ancient California redwoods.

California's own medieval Italian castle, authentic down to the 300-year-old iron maiden in the dungeon.

The beautiful behemoth is one of the largest trees of its kind in the United States.

This cabin from the 1850s is one of the first structures built by Chinese immigrants in California.

The stately birthplace of California's statehood.

This remarkably simple jail went over a century without an escape.

A tree grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays.

An old whaling station now serves to give the public a look at the commercial whaling industry, no longer a part of Monterey's economy.

The first safe in this California town had to hold all the gold.

Where a railroad loops under or over itself to rise or drop more than 70 feet in a short distance.

This rock formation named for its unique shape is one of many that call the Alabama Hills home.

Eons old volcanic activity created one of the most stunning rock formations in the United States.

A roaring, awe-inspiring double cascade of icy water flows through woodland Oregon like something out of a Tolkien novel.