A regular looking rock with an unbelievable history.

Decommissioned experimental solar facilities that pioneered solar energy technology.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

A promotional sun clock on the site of San Francisco's great raceway.

An art collective teaching the more fiery, metal-y art forms.

This Oakland fairytale kingdom, fiercely devoted to childlike whimsy, was an early inspiration for Disneyland.

The graffiti-covered remnants of a former triangulation station are balanced precariously on this California peak.

Another of California's unused Cold War missile defense complexes has become a graffiti gallery.

A rough granite monument marks the spot where Europeans first caught sight of the San Francisco Bay.

This concrete ship has had four careers - World War I tanker, floating amusement park, fishing pier, and artificial reef.

Housed in a memorial lighthouse, this museum relays the history of surfing, beginning with the antics of royal Hawaiian teenagers.

The world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory continues to report on the stars.

A 1920s speakeasy that had rum runners racing up and down the shores of California.

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

The rest of him lived another 61 years and was buried elsewhere.

Elephant seals and sea lions have turned the abandoned buildings on this island into their endangered love shack.

This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.

A New England-style lighthouse along California's beautiful Highway 1 gets a re-do.

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

A pair of pure white felines guard the entrance to a spot of California real estate established as an artist's haven.

A classically inspired temple in Redwood City.

The old Niles Canyon Aqueduct in the San Francisco Bay Area is a bemusing and secret trail through nature for wayward travelers.

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