Places bshea Wants to Go

Rich red almandine gemstones are waiting inside the volcanic rock strewn across this eastern Nevada hillside.

A sculpture for the sun and stars, created by Nancy Holt.

“You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

A proto micro-nation sometimes populated by artists, surrounded on all sides by a Utah most barren.

This plaque marks the site where the penultimate chapter in the journey of two doomed boys unfolded in an imagined parallel universe.

Colorado's only true geyser is hidden within the San Juan National Forest.

A breathtaking array of ancient Pueblo structures and artifacts counterintuitively preserved by neglect.

Hidden inside this Arizona fast food franchise is an in-depth exhibit on the famed WWII counterintelligence program.

An earthwork sculpture built by Robert Smithson in the Great Salt Lake only reemerges during drought.

The hike through a narrow river flanked by the 2,000-foot-tall walls of Zion Canyon is one of the best in the world.

A whimsical, punny collection of "fence art" outside the tiny mountain town of Baker, Nevada.

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

Most-visited and most-photographed slot canyon in the American Southwest.

Rippling sand dunes frozen in the Arizona rock.

Ancestral Puebloan ruins, natural arches, and box canyons abound in this seldom-visited corner of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

A well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan ruin tucked beneath a desert cliff.

Water flowed out of the town's unusual tree stump fountain in the 1930s, and the well still runs today.

The largest island on the great salt lake is home to curious creatures and strange stories.

Metal water storage tank turned ethereal concert hall.

It would be easy to walk past this unusual piece of art and have no idea it pays tribute to the odd life of a real chicken.

This ghost town was once a cult-like religious utopian settlement.

The location along the shores of the Great Salt Lake of what was once called, "The Coney Island of the West", now sits barren due to arson and time.

Sandstone rock formations that look like they belong on the cover of a progressive rock album.

A house carved into a rock in the 1940s.