Four hundred granite steps were built into this massive rock by the National Park Service.

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

Decommissioned experimental solar facilities that pioneered solar energy technology.

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

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

Life in this isolated, hilltop lighthouse was lonely, but it sure was lovely.

The interior of the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining" was based on this Yosemite original.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

The "3rd largest" city in California is an empty mirage of suburbia in the middle of nowhere.

A popular tourist cave with a dark past.

This Big Sur waterfall drops 80 feet directly into the Pacific Ocean, and inspired the hillside house up top.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

Home to the "Circus" trees created by Axel Erlandson.

In this century-old literary safehouse, print is alive and well.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Trails through lava-carved tube-caves display sparkling bacteria and a rich history.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.