The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

Three vintage horses survived a 1976 inferno and found a home on a sister carousel.

Oldest building in California still in use.

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

One of few lasting examples of the brief octagon craze that developed into folly.

Once close to extinction, there is no shortage of elephant seals on the beaches of Año Nuevo State Park.

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

A "haunted" landmark on the coast of Southern California.

Where there's quartz, there must be gold. Thus is the story of the mines of Julian, and the titillating times of the Gold Rush.

North America's largest accredited model railroad museum.

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

Every year, over 25,000 monarchs overwinter in Pacific Grove.

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

Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

Colorful Native American paintings are hidden within this small cavern.

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

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

Smooth basaltic rocks tell a tale of ancient glacial waterfalls.

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

Along a California highway is a kind of Jurassic Park made of metal.

The interior of the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining" was based on this Yosemite original.

The liveliest ghost town in the state.

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.

An optical illusion found amid a logged redwood forest.