Built by the inventor of the radio, this abandoned hotel has housed early radio employees, military men, and a dangerous cult.

This whimsical seashell-shaped place of worship was designed to blend into its surroundings.

The mysterious round rocks of Schooner Gulch.

A local dialect born in the late 19th century is only spoken in this isolated California valley.

One of the largest Buddhist communities in the West sits on the site of an old hospital.

One of only five observatories in the world built to measure the Earth's wobble.

Nuclear waste dump site now an environmental sanctuary.

San Francisco Bay's ghost town.

Neither Spanish settlers nor anyone since has been able to tell who built these strange California rock walls.

The old Niles Canyon Aqueduct in the San Francisco Bay Area is a bemusing and secret trail through nature for wayward travelers.

Location of the most powerful laser in the world, and the potential birthplace of tiny stars.

Elephant seals and sea lions have turned the abandoned buildings on this island into their endangered love shack.

A New England-style lighthouse along California's beautiful Highway 1 gets a re-do.

Once close to extinction, there is no shortage of elephant seals on the beaches of Año Nuevo State Park.

A comprehensive collection of Pez dispensers.

This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.

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

A rough granite monument marks the spot where Europeans first caught sight of the San Francisco Bay.

Another of California's unused Cold War missile defense complexes has become a graffiti gallery.

Abortion, prohibition, religion, war, and fear all play a part in the history of this idiosyncratic Pacifica castle.

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

The peaceful gravesite of a rugged wild west gunman echoes the touching story of his last days.

A promotional sun clock on the site of San Francisco's great raceway.

Tenacious mummies survived dental problems, eternal entombment, and more than their fair share of devastating fires.