A huge musical sculpture and other art installations on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grounds.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

A house filled to the brim with oddities and curiosities.

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

Stepping away from the glitz of mobsters and casinos to learn about the other history of Vegas.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

The mayor made the declaration in 2004.

This inanimate goat created by the "welding nun" has been helping to clean up the city of Spokane for more than 40 years.

Stroll through a wonderland of stupendous moss-covered trees.

Rustic natural hot springs in the deciduous rain forest.

Perhaps the world's only gas station inspired by a political scandal.

This super-sized skillet is a replica of a usable giant pan where a woman once skated on bacon.

This metallic stampede sits frozen on a Washington ridge yet the artist's vision is still incomplete.

100-year-old shipwreck you can walk up to at low tide.

Site of the greatest known waterfall that ever existed.

A cave interior in the shape of the ancient rhinoceros, created by lava cooling around its carcass.

A short hike into the mountainside forest reveals a decaying 1890s town.

An exercise in patience and imagination, where Mother Earth turned common stuff into precious hidden treasures.

Legend says that these tall basalt pillars are the petrified wives of a trickster god.

This perfectly preserved Chinese medicine shop was untouched for decades before being reopened as a museum.

An extraordinary mixture of natural beauty and man-made phenomena.

A fine, large-aperture telescope available for public use.