What is the Thing?

Miniature art that tells an enormous story.

Limestone caves with spectacular showcase chambers.

This striking public art installation is suspended above a public park, designed to gently move in the breeze.

Open since 1938, this diner has kept its fountain, malt machine, and all the gum that greasers left beneath its counter.

The fading, forgotten remains of a once bright and booming factory.

Witnessing the might of this dessert-colored desert waterfall is a rare, powerful treat.

This historic national park is covered in the stunning ruins of red rock pueblos.

In a 345-million-year-old cave that's 200 feet underground, dinner awaits.

A reproduction of earth's many biomes.

An abandoned facility that has become a place of ritualistic satanic worship, or so rumor has it.

A former department store turned into a quirky restaurant.

Founded by members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, this one-room joint's James Beard–winning fry bread is light as a cloud.

Thousands of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats soar around an abandoned storm drain at sunset each summer.

In this small Phoenix taxidermy emporium, you can find everything from a squid in a jar to a freeze-dried toad.

The installation’s official name, “You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies,” says it all.

Seller of surplus nuclear research materials.

The vanishing remains of an old water station from the late 19th century.

The only Native American comic shop in the world.

Inside this small museum resides a strange mix of miniature collections passed down over time.

A small side chapel in Santa Fe's basilica is home to the oldest statute of the Virgin Mary in North America.

All that remains of this abandoned coal town is a beautiful, haunting cemetery.

The winter home of thousands of beautiful snow geese and sandhill cranes.

A half-acre utopia in the New Mexico desert features a graveyard, a game of horseshoes, a library, and a mailbox.