A creepy steel gremlin has protected the Bay Bridge since 1989.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

A decommissioned Naval base now rents itself out for people who want to blow stuff up.

A crumbling Beaux Arts monument to the Bay Area's age of rail.

Oakland's beautiful monumental cemetery.

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

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

International delicatessen has been owned and operated by the same family for more than 110 years.

An abandoned convention space that has been left to the homeless and the radical.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

This mysterious series of teeny guerrilla installations sheds a whimsical light on street art in Oakland.

A restored 1920s cascade stairway provides one of the best views of Oakland's Lake Merritt.

A hardware store Buddha statue installed to deter vandalism wound up attracting Vietnamese immigrants who came to pray.

These once-beautiful historic graveyards are set against the barren Virginia City hills.

One woman's Viking Castle on Lake Tahoe.

Eastern zen meets Western grit in these four little trees growing out of a rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shore.

For 20 years, this whale skeleton has been slowly dripping oil on the floor of the museum where it hangs.

This abandoned radar station from the Cold War era now only broadcasts a seriously ominous air of isolation.

Centuries-old hoofprints and wagon tracks reveal themselves after a good winter storm.

The Atlantis of Cape Cod reemerges during the lowest of tides.

Eclectic collections, artwork, and some feline friends fill the writer's former home.

Experience the hysteria of a 17th century witch hunt through goofy reenactments and wax dummies that should probably be burned at the stake.

The 340-year-old house that inspired the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.