A mysterious and endangered parasitic herb from the California desert.

Where NASA's satellites and rovers phone home.

One of the most unusual geological features, recognizable from a dozen hit movies.

The location of the last stand of Charles Manson's doomsday cult.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

Potential high level nuclear waste storage site for the next 10,000 years and beyond.

A picture-perfect town, perfect for blowing up.

The highest dunes in California are the most likely place in the area to hear the Singing Sands.

Once thought to be the oldest living tree in the world, Methuselah was germinated before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

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

A popular tourist cave with a dark past.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

The smallest country in the world.

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

A volcanic fissure over two miles long and up to 70 feet deep.

This massive mushroom has spent centuries eating its way across a huge swath of Oregon.

The crown jewel of the Queens Museum is a nearly 10,000-square-foot architectural model of the city originally built for the 1964 World's Fair.

Waterway populated with abandoned projects, including a submarine.

An illegally built ramshackle mansion tucked in the middle of Brooklyn is now being turned into condominiums.