A pair of mutilated bronze octopuses slump at the base of the monument honoring California's admission to the U.S.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

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

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

In this century-old literary safehouse, print is alive and well.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

Now a city park, this site started as a stage stop, then was a working ranch, and finally became a dude ranch that specialized in letting wannabe divorcees establish Nevada residency.

The so-called "Father of Las Vegas" had the city's first telephone installed in his office in 1907.

Improbably, the largest wildlife refuge in the conterminous 48 states sits just northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada.

At the base of the Spring Mountains, a unique nursery packed with desert plants.

A blast of nostalgia awaits visitors to this miniature indoor raceway.

This arid landscape was once a lush wetland. Today, it's a paleontological site filled with fossilized mammoths, sabertooth cats, and more.

A luxurious doomsday bunker hidden beneath an unassuming Las Vegas home offers the best of subterranean suburbia.

Formerly the world's largest, this Willy Wonka-esque contraption runs 24/7.

Wayne Newton's sprawling estate is now open for visitors to catch a glimpse of his "heart and soul."

The second-largest gold nugget in existence, displayed in a Las Vegas casino conveniently named the Golden Nugget.

A giant open-air sculpture made of over 200 full-sized boats.

A piece of the iconic wall found an unlikely new home in a Vegas bathroom.