Places engelhardus Wants to Go

These markers are used to determine the ground stability of the Strip.

Under the right conditions, rocks will move across this dry lakebed, leaving trails behind them.

A hard-to-reach oasis in a desolate corner of Death Valley National Park.

This desert oddity hides in plain sight thanks to a cartographic error and a desert explorer with a punny sense of humor.

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

Where the writer penned his famous story about a jumping frog.

This lesser known Hearst estate is a fairytale village built from the stolen bones of historic European buildings.

An abandoned car and strange wooden debris are among the scattered remains of the old sand and gravel quarry.

The tragedy of the Japanese internment camps is remembered here by a stark "Soul Consoling Tower."

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

Graffiti-covered ruins that were once part of a farm owned by a mental hospital.

Hidden in the Santa Ynez Mountains off Highway 154, this tiny restaurant once served as a stagecoach stop.

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

Celebrating the transformation of trash into objects of beauty.

The world's largest wooden trestle stretches across this desert canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Happy harbor seals frolic and snooze on this warm, sandy stretch of coast.

Gorgeous purple flowers drape from the world's largest blossoming plant.

Coastal dunes, site of buried Egyptian movie set and former utopian colony.

Ancient human, animal, and geometric figures drawn in the earth.

The location of the last stand of Charles Manson's doomsday cult.

This impressive tunnel was dug entirely by hand over the course of 36 years.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

Sunset-colored dunes of volcanic ash make taking a poor photo impossible.

World War II-era Nazi compound nestled in the Santa Monica hills.