Places westcoastspirit Wants to Go

More than 150 working bells from churches and one-room-schoolhouses across the Great Plains are assembled in one man's yard.

When an ancient supervolcano erupted, some of Nebraska's prehistoric animals were forever preserved in ash.

The most isolated mailbox in America lets desert travelers record their passing.

This sculpture of a rhinoceros suspended above a city square is meant to evoke the weight of the human condition.

Its dark depths conceal millions of rare, delicate crystal formations.

This sacred cavern, 400 feet deep, is home to millions of bats and an ancient burial ground.

A Texas cave network is home to some of the world's most spectacular-looking and bizarrely named mineral formations.

Designed to allow funerals to proceed over the River Dulnain.

The highest point in South Dakota contains the ashes of Valentine McGillycuudy, the "Holy White Man."

South Dakota's oldest operating brewery is housed inside a historic firehouse.

This prehistoric sinkhole lured exclusively male mammoths to their death, much to the delight of science.

The oldest extant wooden jail in South Dakota and possibly the United States. 

Every president in history is immortalized in bronze in downtown Rapid City.

Thanks to a loophole in property ownership, this alleyway has become a cacophonous street gallery.

This replica stave church looks like a piece of Norway was simply plopped down in South Dakota.

Despite repeated attempts to make it work, this former mining town is now nothing but dust and memories.

A place where the laws of nature seem to have gone completely berserk... but of course haven't.

A 16th century chapel decorated with bones, skulls, and entire bodies hanging from the wall.

Few things look more out of place than the electric blue ponds in the reddish-brown desert of Utah.

This Moab institution functions as both a rock store and a small natural history museum.

The oldest hotel in the world has been operated by the same family for over 1,300 years, even catering to samurai.

Loyal fans of one television's most famous painters still come to pay their respects.

Beirut's thinnest building was the result of feuding brothers.

Mummies preserved naturally for seven centuries.