A 90-foot-tall psychedelic "tree" on the side of the highway has baffled passersby for decades.

Come for the speed, leave in love with the desert.

The world's largest dead polar bear, immortalized by taxidermy and Hunter S. Thompson.

Bits and pieces from the ill-fated Donner Party's winter cabins.

Hidden in a hotel parking lot is a strange historical plaque erected by an obscure fraternal society.

California's oldest existing theater building hosted an impressive cast of celebrities, including hosting Mark Twain's first lecture.

This fully intact Neoclassical-Greek Revival style firehouse operated until 1938.

A historic hotel in an old California railroad town with a rowdy reputation.

Where the polar bear watches over everything, and every drink is a double.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Inside this museum, the history of the Walt Disney Family empire is on full display.

Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.

Ride on a fully-restored Nike nuclear-tipped missile elevator from the Cold War.

Internationally-recognized arts center housed in a century-old former military barracks.

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

George Lucas donated this park to honor the birthplace of his two biggest movie franchises.

A poignant memorial to a young boy whose death spurred a dramatic increase in organ donations in Italy—dubbed the "Nicholas Effect."

Massive prehistoric mammals used these stones as oversized scratching posts.

A striking eight-story-high obelisk perched on a coastal California cliff.

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

This abandoned boat was left in place thanks to its rotting beauty.

An enchanting tunnel of cypress trees leads to an old morse code station still used today.

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