Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

Noble beasts perhaps, but not the Emperor's dogs.

A wall of chewing gum moonlights as collective art.

A tourist attraction founded around a slumping cabin.

Over 300 taxidermied animals in a Californian restaurant make for a taxidermist's dream and an animal lover's nightmare.

A ruined hotel with an unlucky history and an eerie present.

Two mammoth statues inspired by equally tall tales lure tourists to this roadside attraction.

Canyon walls shrouded in ferns.

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

This massive redwood tree has a hole in the base big enough to drive through.

An optical illusion found amid a logged redwood forest.

340 bicycles, 65 feet high.

Bits and pieces from the ill-fated Donner Party's winter cabins.

The smallest country in the world.

An abandoned, unfinished mansion on grounds strewn with lava rocks.

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

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.

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

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Half of a house.

A mysterious painting of the self-declared Emperor of the United States watches over a local hof-brau.

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