Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

A deserted hodgepodge of experimental structures designed by nearby university students.

It's not your typical library, memorial, or book store.

A cozy bookstore is tucked within an old gold mine shaft beneath the cafe and ice cream shop.

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

A sudden forest of traditional Papua New Guinean art works is hidden in a corner of Stanford University.

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

The tragedy of the Japanese internment camps is remembered here by a stark "Soul Consoling Tower."

An old California photo stand has been turned into a shrine to the cozy art of crochet.

A tribute to the life and work of the beloved "Peanuts" cartoonist.

Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

A crumbling wizard is one of the final reminders of a roadside Middle Earth.

A bigger-than-life pun that has become a beacon of altruism.

In a city filled with Frank Gehry buildings, one stands out as one of the architect's weirder works.

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

Travelers exchange letters with woodland creatures at this mini post office.

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

Established in the '60s, a family-owned tropical drink bar founded by Ray Buhen, bartender to the stars.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.

Twelve plaster figures inspired by da Vinci's famed painting haunt the desert landscape above a real-life ghost town.

Eulogizing an unknown man's unusual demise.

Experience a charming 1930's version of "infotainment."

There's nothing creepier than a cemetery next to a clown motel.

Dyed by iron oxide over centuries, these sandstone rocks rise thousands of feet into the sky.