Places Christopher Johnston Wants to Go

The final resting place of a woman who never gave up on love.

Social saloon from a scrapped trans-Pacific 19th century steamer.

One of the last remaining Carpenter Gothic churches is situated on a wildflower conservatory overlooking the bay.

Once the gateway to the utopian dream-village of a Civil War embalmer.

Nationwide network of co-ownership underground catastrophe shelters.

A small space-exploration exhibit hidden in a hotel.

The cluster of boulders near Fort Irwin is covered in military insignia.

Like a kitschy mirage in the Mojave, this eatery serves up classic 50s-style diner meals and a dinosaur sculpture garden.

A collection of anti-communist sculptures stands watch in the Mojave Desert.

Colorful sedimentary rock layers provide opportunities both for hiking and photography.

A former utopian healing center created by a huckster and built by derelicts.

No one’s quite sure why there's a metal megaphone bolted on two rocks in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

The tallest bridge in California was constructed for a project that was eventually cancelled.

A dentist's hated concrete colossi are now beloved icons of the community.

Arcadia is home to a haven for nature geeks and 80s TV lovers alike.

A relic from a forgotten bakery chain still spins atop a diner.

At this California chicken ranch, four bucks will get you 18 eggs and a chorus of dancing animatronic poultry.

This magnificent mausoleum is as much a work of art as it is a historic resting place.

This California estate was either haunted by ghosts or the Marx brothers.

Beside a lonely road winding into the hills overlooking Altadena, sits a portal that urges callers to embrace humanity‘s innermost expression: Goodbye

An "anarchical" no man's land, complete with garbage sculptures and a hobo-run "Landfillian Library."

Antiques by the Bay.

This (occupied) house is 10 feet wide and full of spite.

A decommissioned Naval base now rents itself out for people who want to blow stuff up.