Four, 18-foot-tall badminton shuttlecocks lie scattered about the lawn of a Kansas City museum.

In 1847, Brigham Young climbed this hill to survey the Salt Lake Valley and saw a fine place to build a city.

I-95's Tijuana-style celebration of kitsch at the Carolina border.

A stoic rock cairn is all that remains to remember one of the more brutal instances of frontier treachery in American history.

Although it also features red, orange, and variegated cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, this state park is often overshadowed by its more famous neighbor.

A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

Chevron maintains one “Standard” brand station per state so it doesn’t lose the trademark.

A promotional sun clock on the site of San Francisco's great raceway.

An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

This residential door allows San Francisco muggles a glimpse at the wizarding world.

A pair of slides and a tree-lined stair corridor have been an urban oasis for nearly 40 years.

Half of a house.

The bridge is a secret gallery of discarded gum that has been transformed into miniature masterpieces.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

A unique piece of graffiti offers a little slice of local history and mystery.

Look closely and you’ll notice that the color changes a third of the way up the tower.

The innocent intentions of this monument are somewhat lost in the sculpture's muscled imagery.

A derelict bit of infrastructure from the canal that once ran through D.C. is landlocked in the heart of the city.

On the Fourth of July this area will transform into a Pompeii-like storm of falling embers and ash.

A dramatic, 360-degree recreation of Pickett's Charge in the Civil War.

Berkeley Springs State Park boasts the nation's only monument commemorating presidential bathing.

This mysterious structure by the Washington Monument is a flood barrier designed to protect the White House against rising waters.