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

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

This Los Angeles animation studio is keeping the wonder of stop motion puppetry alive.

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

One man's vast collection of artifacts and ephemera from matchbooks and postcards to vintage neon signs and cars.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

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

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.

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

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Crypt mausoleum in cathedral's basement contains relics of third century Roman martyr, Saint Vibiana.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

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

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.