At the base of Steens Mountain resides an otherworldly desert.

Post office plaque commemorates local resistance to a cult invasion.

As a show of peace, a Japanese naval pilot gifted his 400-year-old Samurai sword to the Oregon town he bombed.

This Portland shop is brimming with natural wonders, local art, and handmade goods fashioned from recycled materials.

No two pieces are exactly the same at Portland's hippo-themed hardware store.

The only Native American museum along the Oregon Trail, run by the peoples who have lived on the land for generations.

This nature center has one of the largest collections of native raptors in the Pacific Northwest.

The world's last remaining store of its kind.

Entering this curiosity shop is like stepping into a mad scientist's lab.

Bridges, terraces, and replicas of historic structures all built of rock and petrified wood by one man.

This strange hill on Old Fort Road where gravity works in reverse has been fascinating locals for years.

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

An institution that preserves the history of institutionalization.

Once one of the world's great cities, Cahokia was a place of religious worship, trade and mass human sacrifice before being mysteriously abandoned.

An eclectic assortment of medieval architecture in a small Iowa town.

A mental health hospital dating back more than 139 years, now features a museum.

The scene of one of the darkest moments in American labor history has been left essentially untouched since the tragedy.

The remains of a World War II-era Japanese American internment camp dot a windswept Colorado hill.

Formerly frequented by Hollywood stars and now open for tours.

The "3rd largest" city in California is an empty mirage of suburbia in the middle of nowhere.

A pair of large white marble lions guard this stretch of the Mojave Desert, and it is utterly mysterious how they got there.

One of the oldest reform schools in the United States, home to wayward boys such as Merle Haggard, now abandoned.

The "Fun Spot of the Desert" is now a haunting ruin, and a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.

A multimedia experience that chronicles the atrocities of racism.