The oldest pictographs on this decorated rock formation in California's Carrizo Plain date back as many as 4,000 years.

Machinery left over from California's once thriving mercury industry now attracts artists and explorers.

Smooth basaltic rocks tell a tale of ancient glacial waterfalls.

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

Giant jewel-toned statues fill the grounds of this Cambodian Buddhist temple in California.

Once America’s most beautiful army base, this abandoned military fort on the coast of Monterey Bay has been left to the elements.

This desert oddity hides in plain sight thanks to a cartographic error and a desert explorer with a punny sense of humor.

Eat a tasty meal in the house where John Steinbeck was born.

This Gold Rush ghost town was once the subject of a territorial dispute between California and Nevada.

The San Andreas Fault spectacularly offsets this creek.

This ramshackle ghost town is comprised of mining-era buildings collected from around the region.

An antique store houses the last operational diner from the defunct department store chain.

A lawless town deep in Death Valley was famous for its riches and death rate.

California's longest-running tourist attraction is a stump.

The highest point in Nevada had to be decided by court order after California tried to claim it as their own.

In the country around Buttonwillow, California, a marker commemorates a revealing moment in the story of a water colony from the fictional Kcymaerxthaere that sought independence.

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.

This trench, some 2,300 feet long, is only the most prominent relic of a largely forgotten episode of placer mining on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Where the writer penned his famous story about a jumping frog.

Inside this library turned museum, the history of Modesto and Stanislaus County is on full display.

This large chunk of dark rock is a relic from an ancient volcanic eruption.

The hundreds of movies and television shows shot in this high desert town are commemorated in a unique museum.

Deep vertical fissures like miniature slot canyons cut across the cemented volcanic rock of Black Point above Mono Lake.

A cozy bookstore is tucked within an old gold mine shaft beneath the cafe and ice cream shop.