A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

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

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

This mountaintop beacon is only lit three times a year but shines like some kind of all-seeing eye.

A free, public museum dedicated to the fascinating science of sight.

Neoclassical Revival mansion and set of horror cult classic Phantasm.

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

Social saloon from a scrapped trans-Pacific 19th century steamer.

This infamous prison has a store where you can buy goods crafted by incarcerated people.

Once the gateway to the utopian dream-village of a Civil War embalmer.

Playable, historic pinball machines fill this Alameda museum.

Cows on a ranch are commonplace, scattered cow bones everywhere? Not so much.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

An enormous illuminated figure dances on the Las Vegas strip.

The memorial to the victims of the Jonestown Massacre carries the names of 918 lost, including one name people wish wasn't there.

One time home to turn of the century explosives, now hidden under the Bay Bridge.

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

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

An art collective teaching the more fiery, metal-y art forms.

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

A temple devoted to inner esoteric mysteries located in a California commercial strip.

The newsstand that never closes its doors—well, almost never.

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