Millions of years of oxidation make a drive down this winding Death Valley road surprisingly colorful.

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

L. Frank Baum wrote part of the "Wizard of Oz" series in this wooden Victorian beach resort.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The abandoned train depot now doubles as a well-placed rest stop for those who take the road less traveled.

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

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

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

One of the ghostly stops along Route 66.

The ghost town that ended up on Ebay.

A volcanic tunnel illuminated by natural skylights offers a shaded respite from the desert sun.

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

The final resting place of a space program monolith, soon to be unveiled again to the public.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

Once thought to be the oldest living tree in the world, Methuselah was germinated before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

Trails through lava-carved tube-caves display sparkling bacteria and a rich history.

Carved by a waterfall in a hard-to-reach rock formation, this heart-shaped rock has inspired romantics for decades.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

This natural marble cave is one of only five national monuments in Oregon.