A rough granite monument marks the spot where Europeans first caught sight of the San Francisco Bay.

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

The first life claimed by this record-breaking peak wasn't lost to exposure or a fall but rather lightning.

A pair of large white marble lions guard this stretch of the Mojave Desert, and it is utterly mysterious how they got there.

Recovered from the brink of extinction, at home in the Financial District.

Russian history in San Francisco.

A B&B on a Victorian lighthouse station in San Francisco Bay.

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

This abandoned boat was left in place thanks to its rotting beauty.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

The hotel room where Janis Joplin tragically died has now become a makeshift shrine to the singer.

A walk down memory lane in the heart of one of San Francisco's most notorious neighborhoods.

The last Americana on Route 66.

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

A Roman-inspired temple once controlled half of San Francisco's waters.

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

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

Adolph Sutro's little-known, geographically inaccurate, deprecated monument.

Longtime headquarters of controversial boys' club for the world's wealthiest and most powerful.

This partially buried wreck is one of the most complete of its kind but is only revealed when the sea allows.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

Celebrating the transformation of trash into objects of beauty.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

An abandoned, unfinished mansion on grounds strewn with lava rocks.