Places Melanicholia Wants to Go

The ancient past meets the retro-future at these dinosaur tracks that are protected by a geodesic dome.

The unique design of this former quarry provides ideal acoustics for concerts.

This Memphis recording studio launched the careers of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.

A very big rock just plopped down in the New England woods.

Neal Cassady may still have an open tab at one of Denver’s oldest watering holes.

A spring-fed pool so deep it's used for scuba diving as well as swimming.

A Prada store in the West Texas desert that is never open for business.

Mysterious glowing orbs float through the desert night.

This interpretive path lets you get up close and personal with dinosaur bones.

This Moab institution functions as both a rock store and a small natural history museum.

A remote sandstone plateau named for a legendary cattle rustler.

This remote Colorado canyon is home to the second-largest collection of natural arches in the world.

It would be easy to walk past this unusual piece of art and have no idea it pays tribute to the odd life of a real chicken.

The man who was president for only one day and spent most of it asleep.

A volcanic cone that formed over 600 years ago.

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

Only known mainland rookery of the threatened Stellar sea lion.

Fifty years after a “blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds,” this idyllic natural area commemorates the carnage.

On the Oregon coast is a natural hole that seems to be draining the sea.

Once an ancient sea, this landscape of rocky ravines is filled with the fossils of ancient marine life.

A fictional Coupe DeVille built by hand and gifted to the Man in Black himself.

More than 350 million years ago, western New York was covered in a vast sea. Today, you can dig up the remains of the plants and animals that lived there.

An ancient cave system in Tennessee’s Appalachian foothills converted to a 1,200-person music venue.

In the power of this waterfall, Alexander Hamilton saw the potential for industry.