A Buddhist retreat built on more than 100 acres of California Redwood forest.

The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

Guns that have been defending San Francisco since 1904.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

An early 20th-century fire lookout, still in intermittent use, preserves legacy fire-locating equipment.

A small research station sits at the summit of this mountain, which is one of the few U.S. peaks higher than 14,000 feet outside of the Sierra Nevada.

For decades, the largest tungsten producer in the U.S. was located in a spectacular setting in the high Sierra Nevada, with some of the workings over 11,000 feet.

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

Downieville's largest Gold Rush structure still standing has one of the longest bars in California.

Finale of "William Tell Overture" can be heard as drivers pass over grooves in the road.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.

Celebrating the transformation of trash into objects of beauty.

Thousands of turbines whir at at the origin of North American wind power.