This stunning sea creature-shaped home blends into the landscape like a fantasy villa.

Coastal dunes, site of buried Egyptian movie set and former utopian colony.

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

A burnt orange monolithic dome structure perched on a hillside near Interstate 280.

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

The mysterious round rocks of Schooner Gulch.

The ruins of the castle that chemicals built.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

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

Acres of natural wonders left behind by a socialite-turned-gardener.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

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

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

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

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

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

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

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

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

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

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

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.