Historic marionette theater features thousands of handmade puppets and free cups of ice cream.

A modern mechanical planetary system, part of a 10,000 year clock.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

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

Eons old volcanic activity created one of the most stunning rock formations in the United States.

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

Stripes of flowers bloom each spring in a 50 acre rainbow of color.

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

Canyon walls shrouded in ferns.

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

Carved by a waterfall in a hard-to-reach rock formation, this heart-shaped rock has inspired romantics for decades.

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

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

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

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

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

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

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

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

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

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.