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

After a water tower painting was accused of being an ad, a simple fix was made that gave the city a motto.

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.

This municipal playground was co-created by the father of one of the most playful characters ever.

Guarded by the Angel of Grief, the Stanford family tomb attracts an odd mix of halloween revelry and somber contemplation.

In one Santa Monica parking lot a mushroom cloud made of chains heralds a message of peace.

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

A sign at the end of the Santa Monica Pier marks the traditional end of the legendary American highway.

A second generation sun-powered marvel lights up the night.

60 feet of towering steel balances gracefully.

An historic and oft-filmed spot for musclebound iron pumpers on the Pacific coast.

A lonely Gondola stuck on a traffic circle sits in a spot where it once would have floated down the Grand Canal.

A black and white mural stands out from its psychedelic surroundings.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

An ominous concrete cube cuts a dystopian silhouette atop this California mountain.

This odd California folly seems like it was almost designed to accumulate urban legends.

A vast city of the dead, where the deceased outnumber the living by more than a million.

The graffiti-covered remnants of a former triangulation station are balanced precariously on this California peak.

Rodin's famous depiction of Dante's 'Inferno', amidst a sculpture garden of many of his other works.

A ruined hotel with an unlucky history and an eerie present.

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

World's largest collection of serial killer artwork and other macabre exhibits.

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

An "anarchical" no man's land, complete with garbage sculptures and a hobo-run "Landfillian Library."