From overly ambitious (and eventually abandoned) atomic dream to bustling office park.

This super-sized skillet is a replica of a usable giant pan where a woman once skated on bacon.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

A peculiar mansion built by the troubled heir to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune.

A regular looking rock with an unbelievable history.

Experience a quartz crystal sound bath inside a storied, all-wood sound-chamber.

The "Fun Spot of the Desert" is now a haunting ruin, and a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.

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

A herd of 150 bison live on California's Santa Catalina Island and are at the heart of an ongoing debate between environmental protection and economic expansion.

A massive sea stack famous for its appearance in The Goonies.

Home of Jake the Alligator Man, the mummified remains of a cigar smoking, cross-dressing celebrity of the Northwestern coast.

This stretch of beach along California's central coast is a busy highway for the largest seal in the northern hemisphere.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

A massive volcanic plug is now a protected area that hosts a number of bird species.

An alley covered with 20 years of bubble gum.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

Get up close to emus and ostriches, or buy their tasty meat.

Honoring the famed folktale author, this California museum looks like it belongs in the Black Forest.

These structures were inspired by both Native American shelters as well as, strangely, an ice cream shop.

Mexican food and folk art.

Oldest building in California still in use.

This stately structure has been abandoned for half a century.

This mysterious petroglyph evokes the ancient swastika symbol but was later vandalized with the more troublesome Nazi one.

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.