The competition: breathe deeply as long as you can.

Haunting and beautiful trees, doomed to die.

One poet's handmade, anachronistic home.

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

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

A 6-mile-long lake created by an apocalyptic seismic event and the deadly chain reaction that ensued.

A museum dedicated exclusively to aircraft used in the military.

A beautiful geyser under environmental threat.

One of nature's most well-scheduled phenomenons resides in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.

Thousands of turbines whir at the origin of North American wind power.

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

The short oil boom of Venice Beach, and its swift removal from the tourism-laden landscape.

An historic and oft-filmed spot for musclebound iron pumpers on the Pacific coast.

NASA's leading space science lab started by a co-founder with deep ties to the occult.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

Abandoned Air Force base that has fallen into disrepair.

Marta Becket's hand-painted theater in the desert.

The first declared National Monument in the United States.

Largest man-made excavation on earth!

Giant, natural amphitheaters made of delicate geological formations called "hoodoos."

A building so large that it has its own weather.

The cinder cone volcano with a less than complimentary name.

In this case, 'zero' marks the spot where the iconic Old Spanish Trail ends.

An urban laboratory.