This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

In this roadside "community for the small," abandoned toys gain new lives.

60 feet of towering steel balances gracefully.

A huge collection of rocks, gems, and crystals.

Humboldt's human-powered sculptures race across land and sea for days on end in a wacky quest for dominance.

A dry lake is what remains of a community founded on a real estate scam.

Hidden beneath a lake for decades, this brutalist mine has now emerged from beneath the receding waters.

The best place in the park to test out your throwing arm.

This former boomtown "island" is now submerged below Folsom Lake.

A giant desert bird that once swung music fans at Coachella now has a home in a nearby traffic circle.

This ultra-modern California span is actually a titanic solar clock in disguise built by famed architect Santiago Calatrava.

This graffiti-covered bridge is the quintessential vision of a place for disillusioned youth to escape the complexities of burgeoning adulthood.

This forgotten Frank Lloyd Wright house is an architectural marvel at the end of a sleepy residential street.

A lighthouse built to save lives that took quite a few with its treacherous location.

A poignant memorial to a young boy whose death spurred a dramatic increase in organ donations in Italy—dubbed the "Nicholas Effect."

Seven ceramic sculptures are scattered around this California college campus.

A rare surviving example of a pre-WWII Japanese garden, restored after years of neglect.

This collector's home is a constant work in progress.

Large but largely ignored, these 42 life-size Liberty Bell replicas were a peculiar, unexplained feature on the facade of a Macy's department store.

Built by one man in the '20s, this site is now a museum representing the Great Basin cultures.

A second generation sun-powered marvel lights up the night.

The Citrus Variety Collection at UC Riverside contains two trees of each of the 1,000+ varieties of citrus.

One poet's handmade, anachronistic home.

Over one million bird-related artifacts await.